TRANSLATIONS 

OF 
RISTIAN LITERATURE 



TERTULLIAN 

CONCERNING THE 
RESURRECTION 
OF THE FLESH 



A. SOUTER, D, Litt. 



TRANSLATIONS OF CHRISTIAN LITERATURE 

GENERAL EDITORS: W. J. SPARROW-SIMPSON, DD., 
W. K. LOWTHER CLARKE, B.D. 

SERIES II 
LATIN TEXTS 



TERTULLIAN 



OF 
LITERATURE. 5ERIE5 II 

LATIN TEXTS 




TERTULLIAN 

CONCERNING THE 

RESURRECTION 

OF THE FLESH 




f 

By A SOUTERALITT. 



SOCIETY FOR. PROMOTING 
CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE. London 
The Macmillan Corapann : 



1922 



TO 

MY DEAR FRIEND 
THE REVEREND PROFESSOR 

HERBERT ADAMS GIBBONS, 

M.A., B.D., PH.D., LITT.D., 

PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY, 

CHEVALIER DE LA LEGION D HONNEUR, 

HISTORIAN 

AND 

CHAMPION OF OPPRESSED NATIONS, 

IN GRATITUDE 

FOR 

A TWELVE-YEARS FRIENDSHIP 



PREFACE 

THE choice of further works of Tertullian as 
subjects for translation in this series was determined 
by the list of the more important works of Tertullian 
given by Dr. S \vete in his Patristic Study (London, 
1902), p. 145. Among these appears the De 
Carnis Resurrectione; and certainly, whether it be 
considered from the point of view of subject-matter 
or of style, it is one of the most significant and 
valuable of its author s writings. At the present 
time its reading may be especially commended to 
the bereaved, at least to such of them as value 
Scripture teaching, as being likely to afford them 
much more solid comfort than they will get from 
spiritualistic stances. 

In this work, composed with great care, Ter 
tullian shows more traces of rhetorical training 
than usual (cf. c. 5). In the wonderful c. 12 he 
even blossoms into poetry. I cannot name a more 
suitable introduction to the study of his works 
than this De Carnis Resurrectione. 

The general features of the present volume do 
not differ greatly from those of previous volumes, 
to which the reader is referred for information as 



viii PREFACE 

to my plan and purpose, but I am glad to be able 
to publish in the Appendix a collation of a very 
important manuscript, hitherto unknown, which 
makes the present volume indispensable to all 
serious students of Tertullian in the original Latin. 
The Rev. J. H. Baxter s kind reading of the 
proofs has been very helpful to me. 

A. SOUTER. 
Aberdeen^ 

January 19, 1921. 



INTRODUCTION 

| r . ON TERTULLIAN S LIFE AND WORKS 

OF Tertullian, as of many another who has 
rendered pre-eminent service to humanity, almost 
nothing is known. His full name was Quintus 
Septimius Florens Tertullian us, and he was a 
native of the Roman province of Africa, which 
corresponded roughly in area to the modern Tunis. 
He was of pagan parentage, and underwent a 
complete training as a lawyer. He appears to 
have visited Italy, but he spent the greatest part 
of his life in the city of Carthage, which had been 
refounded by Julius Caesar about a hundred years 
after the younger Scipio had laid it waste. The 
city had become once again a great centre, and 
Christianity must have reached it at an early 
period, probably direct from Italy. In Africa the 
new religion found a favourable soil, a fact not 
altogether undue to the Semitic origin of the old 
Punic stock, which found something akin to itseh 
in the daughter of Judaism. The number of 
churches in Africa in Tertullian s time probably 
greatly exceeded the total of Italy itself. And 
this Christianity seems to have been more Latin 
than Greek. The most highly educated of the 



x INTRODUCTION 

provincials in Africa were acquainted with Greek, 
but the proportion of such persons was far less 
than would have been found in Italy. 

We have no evidence as to the date of Tertul- 
lian s birth, but if we place it about A.D. 160, we 
shall probably not be far wrong. The date of his 
conversion is equally unknown, but it may be 
assigned to the period of mature manhood. He 
was a man of ardent temperament, unbounded 
energy and great creative faculty. In such a man 
conversion was sure to be followed at the earliest 
possible interval by active work on behalf of the 
Faith, and for him the pen was the obvious instru 
ment. All his knowledge of law, literature and 
philosophy was at once enlisted on the side of the 
persecuted religion. Like a later convert from 
paganism, St. Ambrose, he must have taken up 
the study of the Scriptures as eagerly as he had 
followed his earlier pursuits. We have no satis 
factory evidence that he held any office in the 
Church. It is safest to regard him as an early 
forerunner of a succession of Christian laymen, 
men like Pelagius, Marius Mercator, Junilius and 
Cassiodorus, who have had their share in building 
up the body of Christian doctrine. 

The strongly ascetic vein in Tertullian led him 
later to adopt the doctrines of the Montanists. 
This sect took its name from Montanus of Pepuza 
in Phrygia, and among its tenets was the assertion 
of prophetic gifts in opposition to the regularly 
constituted ministry ; millenarism, and abstinence 



INTRODUCTION xi 

from every sort of union between the sexes. The 
influence of Montanism spread gradually in the 
West, and reached Africa almost certainly from 
Italy, but it is improbable that it had become 
associated with a declared sect in Africa in Ter- 
tullian s time. It represented rather a tendency 
within the bosom of the Church. But that tend 
ency gained more and more power with Tertullian 
himself, and in his later works he accepts the 
doctrine of the new prophecy, and inaugurates the 
arbitrary rule of individual spiritual gifts, thus 
undermining the authority of the Old and New 
Testaments as well as that of the Church. He 
contradicts Scripture in urging the Christian to face 
persecution, in depreciating marriage, in making 
regulations for fasting, and other minor matters. 
But these and other exaggerations, though they 
have deprived Tertullian of canonisation, in no 
way affect his importance as the earliest of the 
Latin Fathers. His great learning, his obvious 
sincerity and his burning eloquence are to be set 
over against such excesses, as well as against the 
occasional coarseness which will break out in the 
writings of a Tertullian, a Jerome and an Augustine, 
who have in their unregenerate days become too 
familiar with uncleanness. In originality he is 
inferior to none of these. In doctrine and in 
language alike he is a pioneer of Western 
Christianity. To him we owe the first formulation 
of the doctrine of the Trinity ; to him we owe a 
great part of the Christian Latin vocabulary. He 



xii INTRODUCTION 

is the earliest Latin writer to quote Scripture with 
any freedom, and he is the first of that roll of 
noble names, Tertullian, Cyprian, Hilary, Ambrose, 
Jerome, Augustine, which no Christian literature in 
any language can match. 

Yet here, also, we have our treasure in earthen 
vessels. Tertullian is the most difficult of all Latin 
prose writers, outdoing the fully developed Tacitean 
style in that brevity which inevitably becomes 
obscurity. His vocabulary is curiously com 
pounded of technical legal language, Grecisms 
and colloquialisms, and in the absence of a special 
lexicon or a concordance to his works it is a task 
of extreme difficulty at times to ascertain precisely 
what shade of meaning to assign to a word. The 
importance of Tertullian is becoming so widely 
recognised now that the task of compiling such a 
lexicon may be commended to a patient scholar as 
one of the most urgent requirements of Latin 
scholarship. But we shall never know his vocabu 
lary and idiom in the way that it is possible to 
know that of Jerome, Augustine or Gregory. The 
comparative neglect of his works in the Middle 
Ages has resulted in the survival of a pathetically 
scanty list of good manuscripts. Much of his text 
will, in consequence, never be restored with absolute 
certainty. 

The list of his surviving works, with the dates 
now generally l assigned to them, is as follows : 

1 I follow d Ales, pp. xiii. ff., slightly different from Harnack, 
Gtsch. altchr. Lift., II. 2. (Leipzig, 1904), pp. 295 f. 



INTRODUCTION 



xin 



Ad Martyras 

Ad Nationes . . . 
Apologeticus . . . 
De Testimonio Animae 

De Spectaculis . . 

De Praescriptione Haereti- 

corum . 
De Oratione 
De Baptismo 
De Patientia 
De Paenitentia . . 
De Cultu Feminarum . 
Ad Uxorem 
Adversus Hermogenen 
Adversus ludaeos 
De Virginibus Velandis 
Adversus Marcionem, Libri 

I.-IIII 

De Pallia . 

Adversus Valentinianos 

De Anima .... 

De Carne CJiristi 

De Carnis Resurrectione 

Adversus Marcionem, Liber 

V . 

De Exhortatione Castitatis . 
De Corona . . 
Scorpiace 
De Idololatria 
Ad Scapulam 



Feb. or March 197. 
after Feb. 197. 
autumn 197. 
between 197 and 

200. 
about 200. 

about 200. 



between 200 and 206 



about 206. 

207-8. 
209. 



between 208 and 211. 



21 I. 

2ii or 212. 
21 1 or 212. 
end of 212. 



xiv INTRODUCTION 

The following are definitely Montanist : 
De Fuga in Persecutione . 213. 
Adversus Praxean . . \ 
De Monogamia . . .Rafter 2 13. 
De leiunio . . . . J 
De Pudicitia . . . between 217 and 222. 

Besides these, several works by him have been 
lost. It is also to be noted that he issued the 
Apologeticus (probably) and the De Spectaculis 
(certainly) in Greek, as well as a Greek work on 
Baptism. 

Of annotated editions of Tertullian s complete 
works, the best is that by Franciscus Oehler 
(Lipsiae, 3 vols., 1853, 1854). The best text of 
the following works is to be found in the Vienna 
Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, 
Vols. XX. and XLVII. (Vindobonae et Lipsiae), 
1890, 1906): De Spectaculis, De Idololatria, Ad 
Nat tones, De Testimonio Animae, Scorpiace, De 
O ratio ne, De Baptismo, De Pudicitia, De leiunio, 
De Anima, De Patientia, De Carnis Resurrectione, 
Adversus Hennogenen, Adversus Valentinianos, 
Adversus O nines Haereses} Adversus Praxean, 
Adversus Marcionem. The best work on the 
language of Tertullian is H. Hoppe, Syntax und 
S tildes Tertullian (Leipzig, 1903) ; on his theology, 
A. d Ales, La Theologie de Tertullien (Paris, 1905) ; 
on his New Testament citations, H. Ronsch, Das 
Neue Testament Tertullian s (Leipzig, 1871). 

1 This book is perhaps the work of Victorinus of Pettau (f 303). 



INTRODUCTION xv 

2. THE DE CARNIS RESURRECTIONE 
Tke Argument 

THE treatise of Tertullian on " The Resurrection 
of the Body " 1 is not the earliest surviving Christian 
treatise dealing with its subject. That honour 
belongs to the Greek treatises preserved under the 
names of Justin and Athenagoras, which were 
doubtless known to him. 2 A short summary of 
Tertullian s argument is here furnished. 

The doctrine of the resurrection of the body, 
which is fundamental to Christianity, is an object 
of ridicule to the mob, who yet offer worship and 
sumptuous repasts to the burned bodies of their 
dead. Philosophers like Epicurus and Seneca are 
in their company, while others such as Pythagoras 
and Plato who do believe in another life, spoil 
this beautiful idea by the absurd doctrine of 
metempsychosis. Christ confounded the Saddu- 
cees, who were disciples of Epicurus rather than 
of the prophets, and Tertullian here sets out to 
confound the heretics Marcion, Basilides, Valen- 
tinus and Apelles who admit the immortality of 
the soul, but deny the resurrection of the body. 
The immortality of the soul finds few to question 
it. It is a primordial truth, easy of acceptance. It 

1 Tertullian avoids the use of corpus in this connexion, because it 
was sometimes used of the anima also. 

2 Cf. d Ales, p. 153, n. 2, to whose account of our present treatise 
I am greatly indebted in this section. An excellent English 
summary is to be found in Bp. Kaye s Ecclesiastical History of the 
Second and Third Centttries, pp. 134-145 (of cheap edition). 



xvi INTRODUCTION 

is otherwise with the resurrection of the body. 
On this point pagan prejudice is strong, and the 
heretics draw some of their arguments from it. 
They insist on the body s weakness, its earthly 
origin, its return to earth. 

To this Tertullian answers with a remarkable 
eulogy of the flesh. God could not abandon what 
was the outward form of his own Christ, dear to 
Him beyond all others. Further, such a result 
does not go beyond divine power. He who could 
create the universe out of nothing, or transform 
pre-existing matter into the present order of 
things, can surely remake what He has made 
before. Many analogies support this view. Day 
comes out of night, the stars shine after an eclipse, 
the seasons come round again, vegetable life finds 
its origin in corruption, and, finally, the phoenix, 
according even to Scripture, 1 rises from its ashes. 
The Lord who said : " Ye are more valuable than 
many sparrows," could do no less for man. 

But resurrection is not merely appropriate. It 
is actually necessary, if we admit that the judgment 
of God is perfect. It would not be so, if man 
were not judged exactly as he had lived. There 
fore the whole man, body and soul, must come to 
judgment. The enemies of resurrection try to 
dissever the natural unity of human nature. This 
they cannot do. J he secret movements of the 
soul are placed by God in the physical organ called 
the heart (Matt. ix. 4; v. 28). Tertullian recog- 

1 On this curious mistake see the note on c. 12, below. 



INTRODUCTION xvii 

nises no mental operation that does not depend on 
the body. Wherever we place the seat of thought, 
we must admit that it borrows the service of a 
corporeal power. The expression of the face indi 
cates the emotions of the soul. True it is that the 
initiative belongs to the soul. But perfect justice 
would render to each attendant according to its 
works. The name "attendant" would seem un 
suitable, because the body is an instrument rather 
than a slave. But why should not the instrument 
itself have its just share of honour or dishonour? 
But the body is not really an instrument : it is an 
integral part of the moral being. Such is the 
doctrine of the Apostle (i Thess. iv. 4 ; I Cor. vi. 
20). The idea that the soul, apart from the body, 
could experience neither pain nor pleasure, though 
widely held, 1 is to be rejected. The soul is a body 
of a special nature, capable of impressions suited 
to itself, as the instances of the souls of the rich 
man and Lazarus prove. The body is restored to 
the soul with the one object that divine justice 
may be satisfied. For the acts belonging especially 
to itself, thoughts, desires, resolutions, the soul will 
have its separate reward or punishment : those 
which were carried out by the body, await its 
reunion with the soul. 

To sum up, everything conspires to prove the 
resurrection of the body; the dignity of the flesh, 
divine omnipotence, analogies from nature, the 

1 Even by Tertullian himself, as d Ales points out, in Apol., 48, 
Test. An. 4 (p. 145, n. i). 



xviii INTRODUCTION 

requirements of divine judgment. All this part 
serves as a preface to the second and third parts 
of the treatise which contain the proof from Scrip 
ture. The question Tertullian puts to himself and 
the heretics is this : Do these passages have the 
soul alone in view, or the body also? 

God s edict that the dead will rise again, has the 
body in view. When God pronounced the sentence 
of death on man (Gen. iii. 19), this of course 
referred to the body. When Christ said to the 
Jews (John ii. 19): "Destroy this temple, and in 
three days I will raise it up," He spoke of raising 
up what they would have destroyed, namely, His 
body. The words must be taken as they stand, 
and not interpreted allegorically. Certainly there 
are allegories in Scripture, but they are not to 
be found everywhere. The numerous passages 
concerning resurrection ought to be understood 
literally; a matter so fundamental for Christian 
doctrine must have been set forth with absolute 
clearness. It is impossible to see in resurrection 
either an illumination of the soul by the grace of 
faith, or an immediate glorification of this soul 
after death. In St. Luke (xxi. 26 ff.) the Lord 
describes the scenes which will precede resurrection 
and judgment. Now, these signs do not yet show 
themselves. Therefore the spiritual resurrection 
of which heretics speak would be premature. 
St. Paul speaks to the Colossians (ii. iii.) of 
spiritual resurrection, but the context is clear, and 
does not exclude bodily resurrection which is 



INTRODUCTION xix 

affirmed elsewhere by the same Apostle (Gal. v. 5 ; 
Phil. iii. ii f. ; Gal. vi. 9 ; 2 Tim. i. 18 ; I Tim. vi. 
14-15, I and 2 Thess. passim], by St. John (i John 
iii. 2) and by St. Peter (Acts iii. 19 f.). The 
Apocalypse announces (Rev. xx.) a general resur 
rection for the end of time, and not the spiritual 
resurrection which is a daily event. Further, if one 
were to appeal to allegorical interpretation, it would 
be easy to find the bodily resurrection predicted 
in many passages of the prophets. In Ezekiel s 
vision (c. xxxvii.) there is more than a simple 
allegory ; but heresy struggles to confine it to the 
restoration of Israel. This interpretation is, if not 
false, at least too exclusive. On the contrary, it 
presupposes the first interpretation, just as the 
image presupposes the reality ; and God s words to 
the prophet confirm this point of view. Ezekiel, 
prophesying before the Dispersion, wished to in 
culcate belief in the resurrection of the flesh, a 
lesson always living and often forgotten. Besides, 
the other prophets echo his words (Mai. iv. 2 f. ; 
Isa. Ixvi. 14, xxvi. 19, Ixvi. 22-24). For the 
manner of the resurrection we can trust to the 
divine power. 1 

The Gospels also give evidence in favour of 
bodily resurrection. Some people take advantage 
of the parables to turn the whole teaching of Jesus 
into allegory. But we have no right to forget that 
Jesus frequently speaks unfiguratively. This is 

1 Here Tertullian quotes a passage from the Book of Enoch, 
which to him had the value of Scripture. 



xx INTRODUCTION 

particularly true of the Judgment and the resur 
rection of the body, both when He threatens 
(Matt. xi. 22-24), an d when He promises (Matt. x. 
7; Luke xiv. 14). Besides, He said distinctly 
that He came to save that which was lost 
(Luke xix. 10; cf. John vi. 39-40). Is not "that 
which was lost " the whole man ? Nothing must 
be wanting there. Full redemption must include 
both body and soul. Jesus also says, " Fear him 
who is able to cast both body and soul into hell " 
(Matt. x. 28). It is impossible here to turn the 
one into the other, seeing that the sacred text 
contrasts the body with the soul. Unless to rise 
again, the body could not fall into gehenna. And 
as this avenging fire is inextinguishable, everlasting 
also must be the punishment of the body which 
the divine justice hands over to it, not to be con 
sumed, but to be tortured. Other words of the 
Lord confirm this doctrine (Matt. x. 29 ; John vi. 
39 ; Matt. viii. 1 1, etc.). Answering the Sadducees 
(Matt. xxii. 23 f.) who did not believe even in the 
immortality of the soul, He implicitly affirms that 
Scripture teaches such a resurrection as they 
denied, that is, complete resurrection. If He com 
pares the condition of the elect with that of angels 
(Matt. xxii. 30), if He declares that the flesh is of 
no use, we cannot conclude anything from that 
against resurrection ; He wished merely to urge 
His hearers to the life of the spirit. Finally, in 
raising the dead, He gave as it were the earnest of 
a general resurrection, by miracles which were, 



INTRODUCTION xxi 

besides, much less than the miracle of His own 
resurrection. 

From the Gospels he passes to the Apostolic 
writings. The Apostles introduced no new teaching 
about resurrection beyond the great fact of the 
Lord s resurrection. Their only opponents were 
the Sadducees. Paul confessed his belief in resur 
rection before the sanhedrin, as between the 
Sadducees and the Pharisees (Acts xxiii. 6), before 
Agrippa (Acts xxvi. 8), and before the court of 
Areopagus (Acts xvii. 31), where he provoked 
smiles of incredulity. He inculcates the same 
belief in almost all his Epistles. We ought not, 
therefore, as the heretics do, to stop at certain 
obscure texts, such as 2 Cor. iv. 16, v. I f, I Thess. 
iv. 14 f, i Cor. xv 5 1 f., 2 Cor. v. 6 f., Eph. iv. 
22 f., Rom. viii. 8 f., vi. 6, and above all, I Cor. 
xv. 50. Of all these texts he gives an exegesis 
favourable to his argument. This last text he 
explains as referring to men of earthly inclinations. 
Further, all flesh will rise again : but, to enter into 
possession of the heavenly heritage, one must be 
transfigured. Those who pretend, in the name of 
St. Paul, to exclude all flesh, without distinction, 
from the Kingdom of God, have only to raise their 
eyes to heaven, and there they will see, seated at 
the Father s right hand, Jesus, God and man, 
eternal Word and last Adam, with His flesh and 
His blood, purer than ours, yet of the same nature. 
This is the pledge of our resurrection. But the 
flesh would not be able to penetrate this Kingdom, 



xxii INTRODUCTION 

except it were first rid of all corruption and 
reclothed with immortality. 

What will be the condition of the glorified 
bodies? According to St. Paul (l Cor. xv. 36 ff.), 
the raised body will be to the mortal body what 
the plant is to the seed. God sowed a living body 
(ver. 44). This perishable life must give place to 
the full life of the spirit. The mortal life must be 
absorbed by life, that the body may put on immor 
tality, not by a destruction, but by a change which 
will communicate to it a new way of being. ^Divine 
justice would not be pleased with a substitution 
which would withdraw the moral being from reward 
or punishment. All physical mutilations or infirmi 
ties will have disappeared, as the resurrection is 
complete. Glorified bodies will have no suffering, 
but will enter into the possession of cloudless 
happiness (Isa. xxxv. 10 ; Rev. vii. 17; xxi. 4). 
Even the clothes and the shoes of the Israelites 
were miraculously preserved in the desert, as were 
the lives of the three boys in the furnace, of Jonah, 
of Enoch and of Elijah ; so that there is no need 
to take such passages figuratively. The mysteries 
of eternity do concern our mortal natures (cf. I Cor. 
iii. 22). As regards the coarseness of bodily 
functions, resurrection requires all parts of the 
body, but not their use. The body will abstain 
in future from all acts that have no purpose in the 
Kingdom of God. The Lord Himself likened His 
elect to angels (Matt. xxii. 30). The conclusion : 
all flesh will rise again, identical, complete ; Jesus 



INTRODUCTION xxiii 

Christ, Mediator between God and man, in His 
own person united flesh and spirit. The flesh may 
seem to perish, yet it is only temporarily eclipsed. 
It will appear again one day before God to hear 
itself invited to glory. This is the charter of 
salvation, brought to men by Jesus Christ, and, 
adds Tertullian, illustrated in these latter times 
by the effusion of the new prophecy, due to the 
Paraclete. 

The Manuscripts, etc. 

The manuscript authorities employed by Emil 
Kroymann for his standard edition (Corp. Scr. 
Eccl. Lat., Vol. XLVIL, Vindobonae et Lipsiae, 
1906) are these : 

M = Montepessulanus (of Montpellier) 54 (saec. 

xi.). 
P = Paterniacensis (of Paeterlingen, now of 

Schletstadt) 439 (saec. xi.). 
F = Florentinus Magliabechianus Conv. soppr. 

vi. 10 (saec. xv.). 

A glance at Kroymann s apparatus will show that 
they are somewhat closely related to one another. 
I venture a conjecture that they hark back to an 
archetype in Visigothic script. If that be the 
case, then this Visigothic MS. may itself be a 
copy of a manuscript brought to Spain from Africa, 
Tertullian s own country. 

In addition to these three manuscripts, Kroy 
mann has compared the text in the following old 



xxiv INTRODUCTION 

printed editions of Tertullian, which were, in part 
at least, based on manuscripts now lost. They 
are : 

B = the edition of Jean Gagney (Martin Mes- 

nart), (Paris, 1545). 
R 1 = the edition of Beatus Rhenanus (Basle, 

1521). 
R 3 = the edition of Beatus Rhenanus (Basle, 

1539). 

C = the readings of a manuscript lent by the 
Englishman, John Clement, to Pamelius 
(Antwerp, 1579). 

Recently, the distinguished patristic scholar, 
Dom Andre Wilmart, O.S.B., of St. Michael s 
Abbey, Farnborough, discovered a manuscript un 
known to Kroymann, containing the De Carnis 
Resurrectione among other treatises. 1 Of this 
manuscript, Troyes 5 2 3 (saec. xii), formerly of the 
Cistercian Abbey, Clairvaux, I furnish a collation 
in the Appendix, as an indispensable supplement 
to Kroymann s edition. 

1 A private letter of Nov. u, 1919, to the present writer; see 
now Academic des Inscr. & Belles- Lettres^ Comptes rciidus des 
Seances de f Annee 1920, 380 fif. 



TERTULLIAN 

CONCERNING THE RESURRECTION 
OF THE FLESH 

I. THE Christian s confidence is bound up with 
the resurrection of the dead. That makes us 
believers: truth compels belief in it; and truth is 
revealed by God. But the crowd mocks, judging 
that nothing is left over after death. And yet 
they offer sacrifices for the dead, and indeed 
with the most devoted duty, in keeping with the 
character of the deceased and the times when 
particular food is in season. 1 They claim that 
they feel nothing, and yet have actually desires. 
But / will rather laugh at the crowd at the 
time when they are cruelly burning up the dead 
themselves. They both court and insult with 
the same fire those whom they afterwards glutton 
ously feed. What a devotion this is that 
makes fun of cruelty ! Are they sacrificing or 
insulting, when they burn things in honour of 
those that were burnt themselves ? It is a fact 
that even the philosophers share the opinion of 

1 For the rime here, pro moribus eorum, pro temporibus esciilen- 
torum, cf. Moppe, Syntax u. Stil des Terf., p. 165. 



2 TERTULLIAN [i, 2 

the crowd. Epicurus 1 teaches that there is nothing 
after death. Seneca 2 also says that everything 
comes to an end after death, even death itself. 
But it is enough if the nowhit inferior philosophy 
of Pythagoras and Empedocles, and the Platonists, 
claim on the contrary that the soul is immortal, 
nay more, assert almost in our way that it is 
even capable of returning to bodies. Although 
they are deemed to return not into the same 
bodies, although not merely into human bodies, 
as Euphorbus into Pythagoras, as Homer into a 
peacock, they at least proclaimed a bodily restora 
tion of the soul. It was more tolerable to change 
than to deny its quality; they at least knocked 3 
at the door of the truth, although they did not 
actually enter into possession of it. Thus the world 
even in its mistaken way is acquainted with the 
resurrection of the dead. 4 

2. If, however, there is some body or other which 
is in the eyes of God 5 more akin to the Epicu 
reans than to the prophets, we shall know what 
cf. Matt, answer the Sadducees get from Christ. It was 
xxii. 23-33 i e ft for Christ to reveal all that had been aforetime 
hidden, to order that which was in doubt, to com- 

1 Cf. Usener, Epicurea, no. 336, pp. 226 f. ; Usener, however, 
fails to note the present passage. 

2 Seneca, Troades 397, post mortem nihil est, ipsaque mors nihil. 

3 I have preferred to keep the metaphor ; Hoppe, p. 137, n., defines 
pulsare here as "to touch." 

4 For this, the most frequent type of ending (_ : ~), see 
Hoppe, pp. I54ff. 

6 Oehler interprets this to mean among the Jews or the Christians, 
in Scripture. 



2] TERTULLIAN 3 

plete what was but assayed, to realise 1 what had 
been preached, 2 and assuredly to prove the resur 
rection of the dead not merely through Himself, 
but also in Himself. But now we are preparing 
for other Sadducees, sharers of their view : they 
recognise a half resurrection, of course of the soul 
only, disdaining the flesh even as they spurn the 
Lord Himself of the flesh. Therefore 3 no others 
grudge salvation to the bodily nature except 
heretics who worship another divinity. There 
fore feeling forced to give even Christ a different 
position, lest He should be regarded as belonging 
to the Creator, they first erred 4 in the matter of 
His flesh itself, either contending with Marcion and 
Basilides that it had no real existence, or main 
taining with the schools of Valentinus and with 
Apelles 5 that it had a character of its own. And 
thus it follows that they banish the salvation of 
that nature in which they deny that Christ had 
any share, knowing full well that it is furnished 
with a perfect argument for its resurrection, if 

1 For repraesentare, see d Ales, pp. 357, 358. 

2 For this riming of first syllables, prae//&z/tf, prae^zVa/a, see 
Hoppe, p. 168. 

8 See Thesaurus, V. 533, 23. 

4 On the tenses coacti, habeatur, errauerunt, cf. Hoppe, p. 68. 

5 Kroymann follows the MSS. in reading Appellen, but in such 
matters these MSS. are worth nothing; the Greek name was Apelles. 
Similarly Apollo and Apollos are often corrupted to Appollo and 
Appollos. The heretics here mentioned were Gnostics ; Marcion of 
Sinope in Pontus broke with the Church in Rome about A.D. 144. 
Basilides taught about A.D. I2O to 140 at Alexandria. Valentinus, 
an Egyptian, was trained at Alexandria, and left the Church in 
Rome in the period A.D. 135 to 160. Tertullian s tractate, Aduersus 
Vahntinianos, is extant. Apelles was a pupil of Marcion. 



4 TERTULLIAN [2 

already in Christ flesh rose again. Wherefore we 
also have previously issued a volume entitled 
Concerning Christ s Flesh, in which we prove it 
at once real in contrast with the unreality of an 
apparition, and claim it as human in view of a 
special quality of nature, the condition of which 
has entitled Christ both Man and Son of Man. 
In proving Him possessed of flesh and body, we 
also in like manner confound 1 them by objecting 
that no other is believed to be God save the 
Creator, while we show that Christ in whom God 
is apprehended is such as He is promised by the 
Creator to be. Then confounded concerning God 
as the Creator of flesh and Christ as its redeemer, 
they will presently be convicted also in regard to 
the resurrection of the flesh in like manner. 2 It 
is almost in this way of course that we say a dis 
cussion must be begun with the heretics for order 
also always demands to be traced from first begin 
nings 3 that we must first be quite certain about 
Him, by whom the matter of our questioning is 
said to have been arranged, and further also heretics 
through their consciousness of weakness never 
engage in a discussion of the regulation type. 
For knowing well how they are struggling to 
recommend another divinity against the God of 

1 On the use of obduccre in Tertullian, see the notes referred to 
in the index to Tert., ApoL, ed. Mayor. 

2 I think the difficulty here is best got over by fQS&v&gcongmcnter 
the last word of this sentence, instead of the first word of the 
next. 

3 For the prepos. with adjective, see Hoppe, p. 98. 



2] TERTULLIAN 5 

the universe who is known naturally to all from 
the evidences of His works, and who is assuredly 
both earlier in His mysteries and more evident in 
His preachings, under the pretext of what appears 
to be a more pressing matter, namely human sal 
vation itself, which must be sought before every 
thing else, they begin with questionings about 
resurrection, because it is harder to believe in the 
resurrection of the flesh than in one divinity ; and 
thus they gradually adapt to suit the idea of a 
second divinity a discussion which is deprived of 
the strength of its own order, and is rather loaded 
with doubts that cheapen the flesh ; and this they 
do from the very shattering and changing of their 
hope. For every one who has been cast down 
or dislodged from his stand on that hope which 
he had conceived in the Creator, is now easily 
diverted to the founder of another hope, who is 
to be looked up to even without this inducement. 
It is by differing promises that difference in gods 
is commended. We see many caught in this way, 
being first dashed from their belief in the resurrec 
tion of the flesh before they give up their belief 
in the unity of godhead. Therefore, so far as 
heretics are concerned, 1 we have shown what wedge 
formation 2 we must employ in our attack. And 
we have already closed with each of them under 
the appropriate head : on the one hand, with regard 

1 For the omission of the attinet, cf. Hoppe, p. 146, n. I ; the 
use occurs in Ov. Tac. (cf. Furneaux on Germ., 21, 3); cf. Fr. , 
qiiant a. 

2 For this metaphor from a scaling-party, see Hoppe, p. 203, n. 4. 



6 TERTULLIAN [2 

to one God and His Christ against Marcion, 1 on 
the other hand, with regard to the Lord s flesh 2 also 
against four heresies, to settle this question especi 
ally first; that I may now discuss the resurrection of 
the flesh only, as if it were uncertain even in our 
minds, if only for all that it is a fixed institution 3 
of the Creator for there are many untutored, very 
many hesitant in their faith and yet more simple- 
minded, who will have to be taught, put in the right 
way, fortified because unity of divinity will be 
defended from this side also. For as it is shattered 
if the resurrection of the flesh be denied, so also if 
defended it is firmly established. But the soul s 
salvation is I believe beyond doubt: 4 for almost all 
heretics, in whatever way they understand it, yet do 
not deny it. It is the concern of some individual 5 
called Lucanus, who does not spare even this 
nature : for, as a follower of Aristotle, he breaks it 
up and substitutes something else for it, for he 
is going to rise again in some third nature, neither 
soul nor flesh, that is, not man, but a bear, perhaps, 
being a Lucanian. 6 He 7 also has received at our 



1 Aduersus Marcionem^ lib. ii., iii. 

2 De Carne Christi. 

3 Read with Thornell (Studio, Tertullianea, Upsala, 1918), p. 27, 
diim sic quoqtte certa penes creatoreni. 

4 Iloppe, p. 138, n. i, interprets retractatus as "treatment," 
"investigation." 

6 On this aliquis, often used with proper names in Tert., see 
Iloppe, p. 105. This Lucanus was a follower of Marcion. 

6 The name Lucanus was originally an adj. or a tribal name 
meaning Lucanian (Southern Italy). The Lucanian district was 
famous for bears ; hence Tertullian s gibe. 

7 For iste = ille, see Hoppe, p. 105. 



2, 3] TERTULLIAN 7 

hands an exhaustive work 1 Concerning the whole 
Condition of the Soul? While maintaining that it 
especially is immortal, we recognise the wasting 
away of flesh alone and claim emphatically that it is 
repaired, 3 and we have reduced to the regular body 
of matter such things as elsewhere also we have 
postponed in view of our slight incursion into the 
causes. For as it is regular to have a foretaste of 
certain things, so also it is needful to postpone 
them, provided that of which we have a foretaste 
is completed by its own substance, and that which 
is put off, is brought back in its own name. 4 

3. It is indeed possible 5 to derive wisdom in 
matters divine from thoughts common to all, but 
as evidence of truth, not as an aid to falsehood, a 
wisdom that is in accordance with, not contrary to, 
the divine arrangement. For there are certain 
things that are known even by the light of nature, 
as for example the immortality of the soul in the 
case of many, as our God in the minds of all. 6 I 
will therefore make use even of the opinion of one 7 
Plato, when he proclaims : " every soul is mortal;" Plato, 
I will avail myself also of the consciousness ^ l ^ 
of a people invoking a God of gods ; I will take p- 245 

1 For stilus thus used, see Hoppe, p. 123. 

2 This work no longer survives, unless, indeed, it be our De 
Anima, as the exordium of that work suggests it may be. 

3 For the rime dcfectionem, refectionem, cf. Hoppe, p. 165. 

4 For this rather uncommon ending ( ^ ^ ), occuiring 

in 13% of the cases, see Hoppe, pp. 156 f. 

6 For est with the infinitive, see Hoppe, p. 47. Note also how 
Reason is here kept in its place. 

6 On this thought, cf. d Ales, p. 39. 

7 For this aliquis, see Hoppe, p. io<j. 



TERTULLIAN [3 

advantage also of the other general thoughts, which 
proclaim God as judge : " God sees" and " I com 
mend to God." 1 But when they say: "what is 
cT. Seneca, dead is dead " and " live while you can " and " after 
death all is over, even death itself," then I shall 
remember both that " the mind " of the crowd was 
cf. Isa. considered " ashes " by God, and that even " the 
cf^ Cr wisdom f tne world " was declared " folly " ; 2 then, 
iii. 19 if a heretic flies for refuge to the crowd s faults or 
the world s inventions, I will say: "depart from the 
heathen, heretic ; although you are all one, you 
who invent a God, yet, while you do this in the 
name of Christ, while you look upon yourself as a 
Christian, you are different from a heathen ; 3 give 
him back his own thoughts, because he is not 
instructed even in your learning. Why do you 
cf. Matt, lean on a blind guide, if you see ? Why are you 
cf?Gai *lii being clothed by the unclothed, if you have put 
27. etc. on Christ ? Why do you use another s shield, if 
vi. 11-17 you have been armed by an apostle? Let him 
rather learn from you to confess the resurrection of 
the flesh, than you from him to deny it ; 4 because 
if it were the bounden duty even of Christians to 
deny it, it would be enough for them to get 
instruction out of their own knowledge, not from 
the crowd s ignorance." Besides, he will be no 
Christian who denies what Christians confess, and 
he will use, to deny it, arguments which the non- 5 

1 Cf. ApoL, c. 17 ex. with Mayor s note. 

2 See d Ales, p. 40. 3 For alius ab, see Hoppe, p. 36. 

4 For the rime in confiteri, diffiteri> cf. Hoppe, p. 165. 

5 For this non closely associated with one word, see Hoppe, p. 107. 



3, 4] TERTULLIAN 9 

Christian does not use. Take away, then, from the 
heretics the wisdom they share with the heathen, 
that from the scriptures alone they may support 
their questionings, and they will not be able to 
stand. For universal thoughts are commended by 
their very simplicity, the common experience of 
opinions and the friendliness of views, and they are 
regarded as all the more reliable because they 
define what is " uncovered and open " and known cf. Heb. 
to all ; moreover, divine reason is in the heart, not lv 
on the surface, and is very often hostile to what is 
evident. 1 

4. Therefore the heretics immediately begin their 
building with this, and add to their building 2 from 
the materials by which they know that minds are 
easily taken captive, namely from the pleasing 
union of the senses. Is there any difference 
between what you would hear from a heretic and 
what you would hear from a heathen? and would 
you sooner or rather hear it from the former or the 
latter ? Is there not at once, is there not every 
where vilification of the flesh, of its origin, its sub 
stance, its misfortune, its whole fate, being unclean 
from the beginning as from the dregs of the soil, 
more unclean thereafter from the mud of its seed, 
worthless, weak, guilty, burdensome, 3 and after it 

1 For the neut. of the adj. thus used, see Hoppe, p. 97. P"or the 
thought of the passage, which is quite in Tertullian s manner, cf. 
d Ales, pp. 34, 36. 

2 For interstrnere, thus absolutely used, see Hoppe, p. 134. 

3 I take molestae to be a gloss on the unclassical o nerosae ; the 
reading of T ( 7 recenst s, the Troyes MS.) confirms my view. Yet the 
Corpus Glossarionim Latinorum appears to contain no such gloss. 

C 



to TERTULLIAN [4 

has passed through all this accusation of meanness, 
doomed to lapse back to its origin, the earth, and 
thus named a corpse, 1 and even after bearing that 
name is destined to perish and then pass from that 
state to become no name at all, to end in the death 
even of every name ? 2 " Do you then," says the 
philosopher, "seek to persuade it that 3 after it has 
been snatched away from your sight and touch and 
recollection, 4 it will one day cease to be wasted 
away and become unimpaired again, cease to be 
void and become solid, cease to be emptied and 
become full, cease to be nothing at all and become 
something, 5 and that it will of course be restored 
by fires and waters and wild beasts maws and 
birds crops and the smaller intestines of fish and 
the gullet that belongs especially to times them 
selves? 6 Will it, however, be so much expected to 
be the same which perished, that men will return 
lame and one-eyed and leprous and palsied, that it 
will be no pleasure to revert to the former state? 
Or are they to return whole, so as to fear a recur 
rence of their suffering? What then of the con 
comitants of flesh ? will everything be again 

1 The point here is that cadauer is derived from cadere (cf. caducus 
of the text). 

2 He means that as the corpse itself ultimately perishes and 
becomes nothing, there is then no word left to describe it. 

3 For this quod after verba sentiendi et declarandi, cf. Hoppe, 

P- 75- 

4 Tert. has a special fondness for substantives in ~tus (cf. Hoppe, 
p. 124, n. i). 

6 For the parallelism of clauses here, see Hoppe, p. 161, who 
gives a number of examples. 

6 Time itself is the great devourer, he means. 



4, 5] TERTULLIAN n 

necessary to it and especially food and drink? 1 
And must it breathe 2 with lungs and swell in its 
intestines 3 and refrain from shame with the organs 
of shame and work with all parts of the body ? 
must it again become the victim of sores and 
wounds and fever and gouty feet ? must death 
again be prayed for ? To be sure, prayers for the 
recovery of flesh will end in the desire to escape 
again from it." And we too, it is true, said 4 the 
same things in a somewhat more honourable way, 
as the modesty of our book demanded. 5 But if 
you want to know to what lengths even their foul 
speech is permitted to go, you can make trial of it 
in meetings alike with heathen and with heretics. 6 
5. Therefore, since both the inexperienced and 
those whose wisdom is still confined to the 
thoughts of the crowd and the hesitating and 
the simple are disturbed afresh by these same 
thoughts, and everywhere this battering ram 7 is 
among the first to be adjusted against us, by which 
the state of the flesh is shattered, 8 of necessity the 
state of the flesh will first also be fortified by us, 

1 Hoppe(p. 1 15 ) regai ds /(7/ar^/ww as a coinage of Tert., designed 
to produce the alliteration w\\\\ pabulum (cf. also his p. 152). 

2 A strange use of nature, attributed by Hoppe (p. 118) to the 
desire for clause parallelism. 

3 Tertullian is here thinking probably of gestation and lactation 
in women ; cf. Ad Uxor., I. 5, nulla in utero, nulla in uberibus 
aestuante sarcina nuptiarum. 

4 For the omission of the verb of saying, cf. Hoppe, p. 145. 

5 Tert. seems here to be referring to a passage in. one of his 
earlier works. 

6 Hoppe (p. 158) counts twenty instances of this hexameter 
ending in Tertullian. 

7 On aries metaphorical, see Hoppe, p. 204, n. I. 

8 On the word quassare, cf. Hoppe, p. 183, n. I. 



12 TERTULLIAN [5 

and blame be driven away by praise. Thus it is 
that the heretics challenge us to play 1 the 
rhetorician exactly in the same way as they also 
challenge us to act the philosopher. This poor 
little body, ineffectual and trivial, 2 which they do 
not shrink from calling even wicked, even if it had 
been the work 3 of angels, as is the opinion of 
Menander and Marcus, 4 even if it had been the 
building of some fiery creature, equally an angel, 
as Apelles teaches, the defence of it which a 
secondary divinity 5 furnished, would be sufficient 
to establish the authority of the flesh. Angels we 
know to come after 6 God. And now, whosoever 
that chief god of each heretic may be, I should 
not unjustly derive even from him the honour due 
to the flesh, from whom the will to bring it forth 
had shown itself. For assuredly he would have 
forbidden the creation of that which he had known 
was coming into being, if he had been against its 
creation. So also according to them as much as 
according to us, flesh is of God. There is no piece 
of work that belongs not to Him who allowed it to 
be. But it is well that the majority and all the 

1 For the final inf, after prouocare, cf. Hoppe, p. 43 ; for the 
thought of the passage, cf. d Ales, p. 108. 

4 For the effective alliteration here, cf. Hoppe, p. 151, who com 
pares Cell., xvi. 12, i. 

3 For operatio abstract = concrete, see Hoppe, p. 93. 

4 Hoppe (p. 151) seems to think that some effect is intended by 
the alliteration in Alenandro, Marco. The opinion stated here is 
often condemned by Tertullian (d Ales, pp. no, 155). Menander is 
said to have been a pupil of Simon Magus, and one of the earliest 
Gnostics. Nothing seems to be known of Marcus. 

6 The angels here are spoken of as second only to God. 
6 For the " pregnant "post, see Hoppe, p. 141. 



5] TERTULLIAN 13 

more famous systems of teaching resign the whole 
shaping of man to our God. How great He is, 
you who have believed in His singleness, know well 
enough. Begin now to be satisfied with the flesh 
whose Maker is so great. " But the universe also," 
you say, " is a work of God," and yet " the fashion r Cor. vii. 
of this world passeth away," as even the Apostle 
contends, but, because it is the work of God, the 
restoration of the universe will not therefore be 
believed in. And, to be sure, if the universe can 
not be restored to its shape after death, what of a 
portion ? Clearly, if a portion is made equal to 
the whole. For we appeal to the difference : at 
first, indeed, because "all things were made by " cf. John i, 
the word of God (and nothing without it was 3 
made), 1 and the flesh by the word of God came into 
being dn account of that law, lest anything should 
come into being without word 2 for he placed first 
in the forefront " Let us make man " more also Gen. i. 26 
by hand on account of the preference, lest it 
should be compared to the totality: "and God," Gen - J - 2 7 
he said, "fashioned man." The method of creation 
is undoubtedly a matter of great difference in differ 
ent cases, corresponding of course to the circum 
stances of things. For what was being created was 
less than he for whom it was being made, if indeed 
all this was being made for man to whom it was 
afterwards assigned by God. Rightly, therefore, 
all things came forth as servants, by order and 

1 On the text of John i. 3, cf. d Ales, p. 239. 
- For the onvs^ion ofyfr/r/, unnecessarily perhaps supplied l>y 
Kroymann, see Hoppe. p. 145. 



14 TERTULLIAN [5, 6 

command and the mere power of a voice, but man, 
cf. Gen. i. on the contrary, as their lord, was built up for this 
end by God Himself that, being made by the 
Lord, he might be able to become a lord. Re 
member, moreover, that man is properly called flesh, 
Gen. ii. 7 which first seized the name of man : " and God 
fashioned man, clay from the earth," now man, 
though hitherto clay, " and breathed into his face 
Gen. ii. 8 the breath of life, and man," that is, clay, " was 
made a living soul," " and God placed man, whom 
He made, in a park." So was man first a 
moulded thing, and thereafter complete. This I 
should show 1 for the reason that whatever was 
really planned and promised for man by God, you 
may know was due not only to the soul but also 
to the flesh, if not by sharing in kind, at least by 
the privilege of the name. 2 

6. I will therefore follow out the plan, if I can 
only claim as much for the flesh as He who made 
it conferred upon it, boasting as it was even then 
because that trifling thing, 3 clay, reached the hands 
of God, whatever they may be, quite happy enough 
though it was only touched. What if it had taken 
shape with no more trouble, immediately God had 
touched it ! It was so great a thing that was 
accomplished, that was built up out of this material. 
Therefore it is honoured as often as it experiences 

1 For this perfect subjunctive, see Hoppe, p. 67, and for the 
sense of cotnmendare, " bring forward," "present," "make plau 
sible," see Hoppe, p. 127. 

2 On the ending, cf. the note at the end of c. 2. 

3 pusillitas res pusilla t ab.str. for concr., cf. Hoppe, p 92. 



6] TERTULLIAN 15 

the hands of God, in being touched, plucked, drawn 
out, and shaped. Reflect that the entire Godhead 
has been taken possession of and surrendered to it, 
with hand, thought, work, plan, wisdom, forethought 
and especially with love itself, which drew the 
outlines. 1 For whatever clay was moulded into, 
was thought of as Christ, He who was to become 
man, 2 as clay also is, and " the Word " which was cf. John i. 
to " become flesh," even as earth also at that time I4 
was to be. For such is the first utterance of the 
Father to the Son : " Let us make man in our Gen. i. 26 
image and likeness. And God made man," Gen. i. 27 
namely that which He fashioned, "in the image 
of God He made him," namely the image of 
Christ. For the Word also is God, " who being Phil. ii. 6 
in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be 
made equal to God." 3 So that clay, even then 
putting on the image of Christ who was to be in 
the flesh, was not only the work of God but also 
His pledge. What good does it do now, for the 
blackening of the origin of flesh, to air the name of 
earth, as a mean and humble element ? since, even 
if another material had been suited to the chiselling 
out 4 of man, the glory of the Artificer should have 
been remembered, who in choosing it had judged 
it worthy, and likewise by handling it had made 
it so. The hand of Phidias creates the huge 
Olympian Jove out of ivory ; it is worshipped, 

1 On this description, see d Ales, p. 64. 

2 On this passage, see d Ales, pp. 108, 187, n. 2. 

3 On this and parallel passages, see d Ales, p. 100. 

4 On cxcudere, metaph., see Hoppe, p. 187. 



i6 TERTULLIAN [6, 7 

being no longer the tusk of a b?ast, and indeed of 
the most stupid l of beasts, but the greatest 
divinity in the world, not because the elephant, 
but because Phidias was so great : 2 would not the 
living and true God have cleansed any worthless 
material by His working, and healed it from every 
illness? or will this conclusion remain, that man 
fashioned God in a more honourable way than 
God fashioned man ? As matters are, though clay 
is a stumbling-block, it is now something different. 
It is flesh I now grasp, not earth, though it is also 
Gen. iii. 19 flesh that hears the words : "Earth thou art, and 
into earth thou shalt pass." It is the origin, not 
the nature that is under review. Existence is to 
be something better than its beginning and happier 
in the change. For gold also is earth, because it 
comes from the earth, but is only so far 3 earth as 
earth is the origin of gold, being a far different 
substance, brighter and grander, though from 4 a 
common source. So also God was permitted to 
drain the gold of flesh from the meanness, as 
you consider it, of clay, cleansing its original 
substance. 5 

7. But the authority of the flesh would seem to 
be weakened, because the divine hand did not 

1 The cunning of the elephant was unknown to Tertullian. 

2 Hoppe (p. 165) regards the assonance elephantus, Phidias tatttus 
as intended for effect. 

3 hactenus = "not more," cf. Hoppe, p. in. 

4 Hoppe (p. 33) takes this de as going with an ablative of com 
parison, and would translate, therefore, " brighter and grander 
than the common source." 

6 On this simile, see Iloppe, p. 216, who defines cxcnsato as 
purgatOy and censu as origiiiali materia. 



7] TERTULLIAN 17 

really handle it also in the way it handled clay. 
But since it handled clay with the intent that flesh 
should afterwards be produced out of the clay, it 
was of course for the flesh that it carried out its 
task. But further I should like you to learn when 
and how flesh bloomed out of clay. For it is 
wrong to maintain, as certain people * do, that the 
" garments made of skins " which Adam and Eve 
put on when they had been stripped of Paradise, 2 cf. Gen. 
are 3 themselves the new creation of flesh out of 
clay, seeing that somewhat earlier both Adam 
recognised an offshoot of his own substance in 
what was now the woman s flesh "this is now Gen. ii. 23 
bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh" and 
the very portion transferred 4 from the male into 
the female was filled up by flesh," whereas, I cf. Gen. ii. 
fancy, if Adam had still been clay, it would have 
had to be filled up by clay. The clay was therefore 
wiped out and swallowed up in the flesh. When ? 
when "man was made" by the breathing of Gen. ii. 7 
God 5 "into a living soul," the breath being of 
course hot and capable of baking the clay some 
how into another nature, into flesh as if into a jar. 
In the same way a potter also may re-embody clay 
in a stronger substance by a regulated blast of 
fire on it, and draw forth one form from another, 

1 The Valentinian Gnostics, who regarded the "garments" as 
flesh. 

2 On this so-called Greek accusative, see Hoppe, p. 17. 

3 On the " potential " use of the future, see Hoppe, p. 65. 

4 For the use of the abstract form in the sense of the concrete, cf. 



Hoppe, p. 93 ; see also p. 120. 
5 Cf. d Ales, p. 108. 



i8 TERTULLIAN [7 

more suitable than the original one and now with 
a class and name of its own. For even if it is 
Isa. xxix. written : " Will the clay say to the potter ? " that 
Rom. ix! ls > man to God ; and even if the Apostle says : 
20 . " in earthen vessels," man is clay, because he was 
7 previously mud, and flesh is a vessel, because it 

was produced from mud through the heat of the 
divine breath. It was this flesh that was after- 
cf. Gen. wards clad in " the garments of skin," namely in 
the skins drawn over it. It is actually true that if 
you withdraw the skin, you will bare the flesh. 
So what to-day becomes a " spoil," if it be 
removed, was a dress when it was a super 
structure. Thus also the Apostle, by calling 
cf. Col. ii. " circumcision the stripping off of the flesh," 
affirmed that the skin was a garment. This 
being so, you have both the clay made glorious 
by the hand of God, and the flesh made yet more 
glorious by the breath of God, by which the flesh 
laid aside the crude state of mud and took on the 
adornments of the soul. A re you more careful than 
God, and do you indeed mount Scythian and 
Indian jewels and pure white grains 1 from the 
Red Sea not on lead, not on bronze, not on iron, 
not even 2 on silver, but insert them in the choicest 
and, besides, the most elaborately worked gold, 
and first ensure the fitness of vessels by the use 
of all costly ointments, just as when you have 
swords of the approved blue colour you give them 

1 He means of course " pearls." 

2 For ne qnogttc = ne quidem, see Iloppe, p. 107. 



7] TERTULLIAN 19 

scabbards equal to them in worthiness l but God 
entrusted the shadow of His soul, the wind of His 
breath, the work of His mouth to some worthless 
sheath, and by giving it an unworthy position, of 
course condemned it? 2 And place it He did 
or did He rather insert it in, and mingle it with 
flesh? So great indeed was the mixture that it 
can be held uncertain whether 3 it is flesh that 
carries about soul, or soul that carries about flesh, 
whether 3 flesh is in attendance on soul or soul in 
attendance on flesh. But even if it is rather to be 
believed that soul holds the reins and is master, as 
being nearer to God, even this redounds to the 
glory of the flesh, because it both holds together 
that which is next to God, and shows its command 
of its very power. For on what natural advantage, 
what secular profit, what savour of the elements 
does the soul feed without the help of the flesh ? 
What else could you expect ? It is through it that it 
is supported by every tool of the senses, sight, hear 
ing, taste, smell, touch. Through it it is sprinkled 
with divine power, and it accomplishes everything by 
means of speech, even if it be only a silent harbinger. 
For even speech comes from an instrument of flesh, 
accomplishments need the vehicle of flesh, as do pur 
suits, talents, and works, businesses, functions ; the 
whole life 4 of the soul is bound up with the flesh 5 

1 For the use of abstr. nouns where the corresponding adjectives 
might have been expected, cf. Hoppe, p. 86. 

2 On this simile, see Hoppe, p. 216. 

3 On ntrumne an, cf. Hoppe, p. 73. 

* On this substantival use of the infin., see Hoppe, p. 42. 
5 On this thought, cf. d Ales, p. 141. 



20 TERTULLIAN [7, 8 

to such a degree that cessation of life for the soul 
means nothing else but a departure from the flesh. 
So even death itself 1 belongs to the flesh, as does 
life also. Further, if all things are in subjection to 
the soul through the flesh, they are in subjection 
to the flesh also. When you make use of a thing, 
you must at the same time make use of the instru 
ment which enables you to use it. So the flesh, 
while it is considered attendant and handmaid to 
the soul, is found to be also its partner and joint 
heir. And if of temporal things, 2 why not also of 
everlasting ? 2 

8. This indeed, as it were with reference to the 
general character of human circumstances, I should 
pay heed to, 3 as a help to the flesh. Let us con 
sider now with reference also to the special character 
of the Christian name how great a privilege before 
God this trifling and mean substance enjoys, 
although it would have sufficed for it that no soul 
at all could gain salvation unless it believed while 
it was in the flesh ; to such a degree is flesh the 
pivot 4 of salvation. When as the result of salva 
tion the soul is bound to God, it is the flesh itself 
that brings about this possibility. To be sure the 
fles.h is cleansed 5 that the soul may be freed from 
stain : the flesh is anointed that the soul may be 



1 On this substantival use of the infin., see Hoppe, p. 42. 

2 For the neut. pi. of adj. as substantive, cf. Hoppe, p. 97. 

3 On this perfect subjunctive, cf. Hoppe, p 67. 

4 On the play upon words in caro, cardo, cf. Hoppe, p. 169. 

6 Oehler compares De Baptismo, cc. 6-8, for the five stages here 
enumerated, 



8] TERTULLIAN 21 

consecrated; the flesh is marked 1 that the soul 
also may be fortified ; the flesh is shadowed by the 
laying on of a hand, that the spirit also may be 
enlightened by the Spirit; 2 the flesh feeds on the 
body and blood of Christ, that the soul also may 
be fed 3 from God. 4 Therefore they that are cf. Matt, 
joined in work cannot be treated differently from 
one another in payment. Even the sacrifices that 
are pleasing to God, I mean the soul struggles, 
fastings, and dry 5 foods, and the squalor attaching 
to this duty, are celebrated by the flesh at special 
discomfort to itself. Virginity also and widow 
hood and an orderly neglect of marriage in secret 
and the one 6 knowledge of it are offered to God 
from among the good things of the flesh. Again, 
what do you think about it, when for loyalty to 
the name it is dragged out into public view and 
exposed to the hatred of the people, while it 
struggles with determination ; when in prisons it 
wastes away, a victim to the foulest deprivation of 
light, to the lack of human society, to filth, noi- 
someness, insult ; denied freedom even in sleep, nay 
chained even to its very bed and rent by the very 
pallet ; when now in daylight also it is torn by 

1 With the sign of the Cross. 

2 See d Ales, pp. 327, n. i, 368. 

8 On the metaph. use of saginare, " to fatten," cf. Hoppe, p. 181. 

4 This elaborate parallelism is affected by Tertullian ; cf. Hoppe, 
p. 161. 

6 In my view the true text is simply seras (i.e. frpas], escas, el 
aridas being a gloss defining the Graeco-Latin word seras. The 
reference is to what is called xerophagia (Tert., De leiun., i. 5, 
Cassian). 

6 Through marriage with one person alone. 



22 TERTULLIAN [8, 9 

every contrivance of torture ; when finally it is 
squandered away 1 by execution, striving to repay 
Christ by dying for Him, and indeed often by the 
same cross, nay even by more cruelly contrived 
penalties as well ? Verily that is most blest and 
glorious which can meet such a debt before Christ 
the Lord, as to owe nothing more to Him than 
its deliverance from indebtedness to Him, being all 
the more enchained because liberated ! 2 

9. So, to tell again 3 of what God with His 
own hands built in the image of God, what He 
cf. Gen. i. endowed with life from His own breath "in the 
likeness" of His own vital force, what He set over 
the habitation, profit and lordship of all His 
workmanship, 4 what He clothed with His own 
sacraments 5 and trainings, whose cleanness 6 He 
loves, whose chastisements He approves, whose 
sufferings He counts as paid to Himself, will it 
not rise again, though God s again and again ? 7 
Away, away with the idea 8 that God should 
abandon to eternal ruin the work of His hands, 
the object of His mind s care, the receptacle 9 of 

1 Erogare, "to spend," hence f to put an end to, " "to kill"; see 
Hoppe, p. 131. 2 Seed Ales, p. 108. 

3 For this poetical sense of retexere, "to repeat," cf. Hoppe, 
p. 192. 

4 For the use of abstr. for concr., cf. Iloppe, p. 93. 

6 On the sense of the word, see d Ales, p. 323, de Backer, Sacra- 
mentum (Louvain, 1911), pp. 58 f. 

6 For the plural of the abstract noun, cf. Hoppe, p 90. 

7 For the avoidance of the relative clause, totiens dei being equal 
to qua totiens dei est, cf. Hoppe, p. 142. 

8 For the construction absit tit, see Hoppe, p. 82. 

9 Literally "sheath"; cf. Hoppe, p. 117. For the rime between 
uaginam and reginam, see Hoppe, p. 165. 



9 , 10] TERTULLIAN 23 

His breath, the queen of His effort, the heir of His 
bounty, the priest of His worship, the soldier of 
His witness, the sister of His Christ. We know 
that " God is good " : it is from His Christ that we Matt. xix. 
learn " He alone is good," and as, after command- * Matt 
ing love to Himself, He then commands "love to xix. 19; 
one s neighbour," He himself also will do that which 
He commanded. He will love flesh, which is in so 
many ways neighbour to Him ; though it be weak, 
yet "is strength made perfect in weakness" ; 2Cor-xii. 9 
though ailing, yet " none need a physician save Luke v. 31 
those that are in a bad way " ; though without 
honour, yet " them that are without honour we i Cor. xii. 
compass with the greater honour"; though lost, 23 
yet " I came," said He, " to rescue that which was Luke xix. 
lost " ; though apt to sin, yet " I," said He, " prefer eut 
for myself the salvation rather than the death of a xxxi i- 39 
sinner"; though condemned, yet "I," said He, x \ iii. 23^ 
"shall strike dead and make whole." l Why do you 32 
reproach the flesh with that which waits for God 
and rests its hopes on God ? Those whom He has 
aided are honoured by Him. I should venture to 
say : if the flesh had not had those experiences, 
the kindness, favour, mercy, yea, all the beneficent 
power of God would have been of none effect. 2 

10. You have now heard the passages of Scrip 
ture by which the flesh is blackened : 3 heed also 

1 For the anaphora throughout this passage, cf. Hoppe, p. 147. 

2 uacuisstt is a byform of uacauissel. For such late forms see 
Georges, Worterbuch^ s. v. vaco. 

3 For infuscare thus used = "blame," cf. Hoppe, p. 133; and 
for the play on words, cf. Hoppe, p. 169. 



24 TERTULLIAN [10 

those by which it is made to shine ; you are 
reading the passages wherein it is degraded, 
direct your vision also to those in which it is 
isa. xl. 6 raised. 1 "All flesh is hay." That is not all 
that Isaiah declares, but he says also: "All flesh 
isa. xl. 5 shall see God s salvation." God is recorded in 
Genesis as saying : " My Spirit shall not remain 
Gen. vi. 3 in these men, because they are flesh." But we 
Joel ii. 28 also hear His voice through Joel : " I will pour 
out of my Spirit on all flesh." Besides, you must 
not take your knowledge of the Apostle from one 
type of passage 2 only, in which he frequently pierces 
cf. Rom. the flesh. For although he denies that "any good 
Rom 8 viii dwells in m " s flesh," although he avers that " those 
8 who are in the flesh, cannot please God," because 

Gal. v. 17 it "lusts against the spirit," and even if other 
statements are to be found in him in which, not 
indeed the nature, but the behaviour of the flesh 
c . 16 is dishonoured, we shall certainly say elsewhere 
that no reproach ought to be brought against the 
flesh in particular except with a view to the 
chastisement of the soul, which subdues the flesh 
in service to itself; but sometimes the voice of Paul 
is heard also in those letters, telling us that he 
Gal. vi. 17 "bears the brands of Christ on his body," for 
bidding the pollution of our " body," since it is 
cf. i Cor. the tem pi e " o f " God," representing our "bodies 
i Cor. vi. as Christ s members," advising us " to carry and 
cf i Cor glorify God in our body." Therefore, if the blots 

vi. 20 

1 On this chapter, see d Ales, p. 108. 

2 For stilus = "passage," cf. Hoppe, p. 123. 



io, n] TERTULL1AN 25 

upon the flesh make its resurrection utterly 
impossible, why will not its excellences rather 
bring it about? It is more in agreement with 
God s character to restore to a state of salva 
tion what He has for a time rejected, than to 
consign to utter ruin what He has actually 
approved. 

ii. Enough touching the praise 1 of the flesh, in 
opposition to its enemies and its friends alike. 
None lives so carnally as those that deny the 
resurrection of the flesh. For those that deny it 
view punishment and training with contempt. 
Concerning them the Paraclete also speaks plainly 
through the prophetess Prisca : " Flesh they are, 
and flesh they hate." 2 If it be fortified by 
influence great enough to defend it and earn it 
salvation, ought we to review the dominion and 
power 3 and freedom of action even of God 
Himself, to see whether He is great enough to 
be able "to rebuild" and re-establish " the cf. Acts xv. 
tabernacle " of flesh, broken down and swallowed x ^ 
up 4 and snatched away in whatsoever ways it may e j. c - 
be ? Or has He also published for us some in- v . 4, etc. 
stances of this power of His publicly over nature? 

1 For praeconium in the sense of "praise," cf. Hoppe, p. 123. 

2 Intentional play upon words here ; it means : " They live in 
a fleshly way, that is, in sin : and yet hate the flesh in denying 
its resurrection" (Hoppe, p. 171). See also d Ales, p. 109, and 
for a collection of such Montanist oracles, d Ales, p. 452. The 
Clairvaux MS. omits this sentence altogether. 

a For the alliteration in potentiam, potestatetn, cf. Hoppe, 
P- 152. 

4 For the alliteration in dilapsum, deuovatum, cf. Iloppe, 
p. 150. 

D 



26 TERTULLIAN [n 

Lest perchance any should know 1 in the future 2 
how to know God, who must be believed on no 
other condition than that He should be believed 3 
able to do anything, you can clearly find statements 
in the philosophers who claim that this universe 
was not unborn and uncreated. But what is much 
better, almost all heresies, agreeing that the 
universe came into being and was made, attribute 
creation 4 to our God. 5 Therefore be sure that 
He produced all that we see out of nothing, and 
you know God in trusting 6 that God has such 
power. 7 For there are also certain people, too 
weak to believe 8 that at first, who maintain that 
the universe was instituted by Him, as the 
philosophers say, rather from underlying matter. 9 
However, even if it were really 10 so, since never 
theless He was said to have produced, as the 
result of the reshaping of matter, natures and 
forms that were far different from what the 
matter itself had been, I should none the less 

1 The variant reading sitiant, " thirst," with the dependent 
infin., is alluded to by Hoppe, p. 47. 

2 Hoppe takes adhuc of the future, and explains neadhuc as 
equal to non (ne) iam (p. no). 

3 For this classical construction with the passive of credo, see 
Iloppe, p. 52. 

4 For conditio (abstr.) = concr., cf. Hoppe, p. 92. 

5 See d Ales. p. 106. 

6 For the modal abl. of gerund = pres. participle, cf. Hoppe, 

P- 57- 

7 For this quod construction, cf. c. 4 and Hoppe, p. 75. 

8 For infirmus with the infin., cf. Hoppe, p. 49. 

9 The V\T] vTroKfLjjLffr] of Aristotle. 

10 For the adverbial phrase in uero, cf. Hoppe, p. 100, also 
Apol., 23 (p. 80, 1. 5, ed. Mayor), according to the true reading of 
codex Fuldensis : see Lofstedt, Tert. Apol. textkr, uwtersucht, 
pp. 99 ff. 



ii, 12] TERTULLIAN 27 

maintain that He had produced them from 
nothing, if He had produced those things that had 
not existed at all. For what difference does it 
make whether anything is produced from nothing 
or from something, provided that it becomes 
what it was not, since also not to have existed 
is to have been nothing? 1 So also, on the con 
trary, 2 to have been is to have been something. 
Now, although there is a difference, yet both sup 
port my opinion. For whether God achieved 
everything out of nothing, He will be able to 
fashion flesh also from nothing, flesh that is 
reduced 3 to nothing : or whether He gave them 
form out of different matter, He will be able to 
call forth from something else flesh by whatsoever 
absorbed. 4 And assuredly He who made is able 5 
to remake ; just as it is much more to make 
than to remake, to make a beginning than to 
restore a beginning, so also you must believe 
that the restoration of flesh is easier than its 
creation. 6 

12. Look now also at the very examples of the 
divine power. Day dies into night and is every 
where buried by darkness. The glory of the 

1 On all this passage, see d Ales, pp. ill f. 

2 On the phrase e contrario, see Hoppe, p. 102. 

3 Read prodactam (from prodigere) with Oehler and Lofstedt, 
Kritische Bemerkungen zu Tertullians Apologetikum (Lund, 
1918), p. 55. This is confirmed by the Clairvaux MS. 

4 Dehauire properly means "to draw water, hence" "to 
swallow, absorb, waste " (Hoppe, p. 128); quocumque is probably 
adv. here, "whithersoever." 

5 For idoneus with the infin., see Hoppe, p, 49. 
G For the ending, cf. Hoppe, p. 156. 



28 TERTULLIAN [12 

universe is shrouded in gloom, everything is 
blackened. All things are bemeaned, silenced, 
paralysed, 1 everywhere there is a stoppage of work. 
Thus is the loss of light mourned. 2 And yet back 
it comes to life again for the whole world with 
its outfit, with its dowry, with the sun, being 
whole and unimpaired, putting to death 3 its own 
slayer 4 which is night, tearing open its own burial 
place which is darkness, appearing as heir to itself, 
until night also come to life again, it being like 
wise accompanied by its own equipment. For the 
rays of the stars which the morning light had put 
out are re-ignited ; the absent constellations, 5 too, 
which a difference in season had removed, are 
brought back ; the mirror-like moons also, which 
the progress of the month had worn away, are 
repaired. Winters and summers, springs 6 and 
autumns come back again 7 in their courses with 
their strength, characteristics and fruits. Nay 
more, even the earth gets its training from the 
sky : the clothing of the trees after they have 
been stript, the colouring of the flowers anew, 
the spreading again of the grass, the display of 

1 For the triple alliteration, sordent, silent, stupent, cf. Iloppe, 
p. 148. 

2 For the figura pseudo-etymologica in lux-lugetur, an error of 
taste of which Tert. is not often guilty, cf. Iloppe, p. 172. 

3 For the (poetical) use of interficere with an impersonal object, 
cf. Iloppe, p. 182. 

4 For this metonymical sense of mors, see Iloppe, p. 94. 

5 For siderum absentiae = sidera absentia, and such-like phrases, 
see Iloppe, p. 86 ; for the plural of the abstract noun, see Iloppe, 
p. 88. 

6 For nerna, neut. pi. of adj., thus used, cf. Iloppe, p. 98, n. 

7 For this sense of reitolui, see Huppe, p. 191. 



12] TERTULLIAN 29 

the identical seeds that have been wasted, and the 
fact that this does not happen till they have been 
wasted. A wondrous plan ! it is first a cheat, 
then a preserver ; l it kills that it may give back ; 
it destroys that it may keep ; it corrupts that it 
may renew ; it first breaks up that it may actually 
enlarge. Since 2 it restores them in a more fertile 
and cultivated state than they were when they 
were destroyed, destruction may truly be said to 
have meant increase, harm profit, and loss gain. 
Let me say it 3 once for all 4 : Every creation is 
subject to recurrence. Everything you meet had 
a previous existence : whatever you have lost will 
come again. Everything comes a second time: 
all things return to a settled position when they 
have gone away, all things begin when they have 
ceased to be. They are brought to an end in 
order that they may come into being : 5 nothing 
is lost except that it may be recovered. 6 All this 
revolving order of things, therefore, is evidence of 
the resurrection of the dead. God ordained it in 
works before He commanded it in writing, He pro 
claimed it by strength before He proclaimed it 
in words. 7 He first sent you nature as teacher, 
intending to send you prophecy also, in order that 

1 For the omission of fit, cf. Hoppe, p. 145. 
2 Si quidem in causal sense, cf. Hoppe, p. 83. 

3 For this perfect subjunctive, used as "potential," see Hoppe, 
p- 67. 

4 For this sense of se mel, see Hoppe, p. 113. 

6 For the alliteration, finiuntur, fiant, cf. Hoppe, p. 148. 

6 For this "final" use of I M and the accusative, cf. Hoppe, p. 39. 

7 For the play upon words in uiribus, uocibus, cf. Hoppe, 
p. 169. 



30 TERTULLIAN [12, 13 

having learnt from nature, you may the more 
easily believe prophecy, in order that you may 
receive at once when you hear what you have 
already seen everywhere, and that you may not 
doubt God to be the resuscitator l of flesh also, 2 
since you know Him to be the restorer of all 
things. And, to be sure, if all things rise again 
for man for whom they have been arranged, it 
follows that this cannot be for man unless for 
flesh also, and therefore it is absurd to conclude 
that the thing itself should perish entirely, on 
whose account and for whom nothing perishes. 3 

13. If the universe does not portray resurrection, 
if creation 4 indicates no such character, because 
its individual parts are said not so much to die 
as to come to an end, and are not regarded as 
re-endowed with life, 5 but given a new shape, take 
a sufficient and undeniable example of this hope, 
since 6 it is a breathing thing, subject both to life 
and to death : I mean that bird, special to the 
east, 7 famous from its solitary 8 character, miracu 
lous in its after-history, 9 which gladly puts itself 

1 Resuscitator, according to Hoppe (p. 116), was coined by 
Tert. for parallelism with restitutor. For the combination of allit 
eration and rime in this case, see Hoppe, p. 167. 

2 For non dubitare with ace. and infin., cf. Hoppe, p. 51. 

3 For this ending, cf. c. 2, and Hoppe, p. 157. 

4 For conditio abstr. for concr. , cf., c. n and Hoppe, p. 92. 

6 The new coinage redanimari (reanimari] for the sake of 
alliteration with reformari (cf. Hoppe, pp. 115, 153). 

6 Si quidem = "since," cf. c. 12, and Hoppe, p. 83. 

7 For peculiaris with the genitive, cf. Hoppe, p. 23. 

8 Or perhaps " unique " : there is only one at a time. 

9 For de with abl. of cause, twice here, cf. Hoppe, p. 33 ; for 
the double rime, Hoppe, p. 165. 



13, 14] TERTULLIAN 31 

to death and renews itself, passing away and 
appearing again 1 by a death which is a birth, 
a second time a phoenix where now there is none, 
a second time the very creature that no longer 
exists, another and yet the same. 2 What could 
be clearer and more definite for our purpose ? Of 
what else is there such a proof? Even God in 
his Scriptures says : "Arid thou shalt surely flourish Ps. xci. 13 
as doth the phoenix," 3 that is from 4 its death, from 
its funeral, so that you may believe that even out 
of fire 5 the nature of its body can be driven. The 
Lord declared that we "are better than many Matt. x. 31 
sparrows " : if not also " than many phoenixes," it 
is nothing great. But shall men perish once for 
all, 6 while Arabian birds are sure of rising again ? 7 
14. Since meantime such are the outlines of 
divine strength that God has no less worked in 
parables than spoken, let us come also to his very 
edicts and decrees, by which at this very moment 
we are arranging the present division of our sub 
ject-matter : for we began with the authority of 
the flesh, considering whether it is in its ruined 

For the rime decedens, succedens, cf. Hoppe, p. 163. 

For the careful structure of this sentence, cf. Hoppe, p. 161. 

Tertullian makes a curious error here ; the <otVi referred to 
in the psalm is the " palm tree " ; cf. d Ales, p. 251. The natural 
history of that age was elementary (cf. d Ales, p. 496). 

For de where we should expect ab, cf. Hoppe, p. 38. 

For de with abl. of separation, cf. Hoppe, p. 34. 

On semel = "once for all," cf. Hoppe, p. 113. 

For this abl. absol. see Hoppe, p. 32, and for de with abl. 
construction with securus, cf. Hoppe, p. 34. A. Souter, Study of 
Ambrosiaster, p. 137, Vocabularium lurisprudentiae Romanae, 
V. 303, lyff. For the ending of this chapter, cf. c. I and Hoppe, 
p. 156. 



32 TERTULLIAN [14 

state capable of salvation, then we went on to ask 
with regard to God s power, whether it is great 
enough to be able to confer salvation on a ruined 
object; now, if we have proved both these points, 
I should like also to enquire with regard to the 
cause, whether there is one worthy enough to claim 
the resurrection of the flesh as necessary and as 
certainly in every way reasonable, because it is 
natural to say : " even if flesh can 1 be restored, 
even if the Godhead is able 2 to restore it, yet 3 
there will have to be 4 a reason for that restitution." 
Listen, therefore, also to the reason, you who learn 
in God s presence that He is as good as He is also 
just, good in His own nature, just in His relation 
to ours. For if man had not sinned, he would 
know merely that God was good by the very 
individuality of His nature. But now he experi 
ences also His justice as the result of the necessity 
of the situation, and yet in this very thing is His 
goodness also shown, namely that He is also just. 
Both by helping the good and by punishing the 
evil He shows His justice and thus gives a double 
vote for the good, as on the one hand he punishes 
the latter, and on the other he rewards the former. 5 
But with Marcion 6 you will learn more fully 

1 On capax with the infin., see Hoppe, p. 49. 

2 On idoneus with the genitive, see Hoppe, pp. 22, 55. 

3 On sed introducing the apodosis, with etsi in the protasis, 
see Hoppe, p. 108. 

4 Qr\ praeesse = "vorhanden sein," see Hoppe, p. 136. 

6 On the contrast istud-illitd t corresponding to the classical Jioc- 
ilhid, cf. Hoppe, p. 104. 

6 A reference to Aduersus Marcionem, I, II. 



14] TERTULLIAN 33 

whether this is all that is in the Godhead. Mean 
time such is our God, deservedly a judge, because 
He is our Lord and master, deservedly a Lord 
because He is our creator, deservedly a creator 
because He is our God. Hence 1 it is that some 
heretic or other reasoned : " deservedly He is no 
judge, for He is no Lord ; deservedly no Lord, for 
He is no creator." I do not know really whether 2 
He be a god who is not also a creator as God is, 
nor a Lord as our Creator is. Therefore if it is 
most fitting for a God and Lord and Creator to fix 
a judgment for man on this very point, whether he 
has taken care to recognise and pay court to His 
own Lord and creator or not, 3 resurrection will of 
course fulfil that judgment. This will be the whole 
reason, or rather the necessity for resurrection, a 
reason of course entirely in keeping with God, the 
purposer 4 of the judgment. With regard to His 
arrangement you ought to consider whether the 
divine judgment presides over the judging of both 
elements in human nature, the soul as much as the 
flesh. It will be fitting that what it is suitable to 
judge should also be raised again. We say that 
God s judgment must in the first instance be 
believed to be full and complete, as it is then final 
and thence lasting, as also just, since in no case 

1 On hinc as inferential particle, see Hoppe, p. in. 

2 On si = num, cf. Hoppe, p. 73. 

3 On the double an (poetical and post-classical), cf. Hoppe, 
PP- 73 f. 

4 Kroymann s destinatori ; but the dcslinatio of the MSS. is 
rather confirmed by ApoL 48 (p. 136, 1. 17, ed. Mayor), ratio 
restitutionis destinatio iudidi est. 



34 TERTULLIAN [14, 15 

does it fall short of this, as also worthy of God, 
since in accordance with His long-suffering it is 
full and complete. 1 Therefore the fullness and 
completeness of the judgment depends only 
on the presentation 2 of the whole man. The 
whole man, further, shows himself to be 3 from the 
combined growth of two natures, and therefore he 
must be displayed in both natures, who must be 
judged as a whole, since he did not of course live 
except as a whole. As therefore he has lived, so 
will he be judged, because he must be judged by 
his life. For life is the cause of judgment, and it 
has to be fulfilled 4 in as many natures as those 
in which it died. 5 

15. Come then ! let our opponents sever the 
composite structure of flesh and soul first in the 
conduct of life, that thus they may dare to sever it 
also in the sphere of life s reward. Let them 
repudiate the partnership in works, that they may 
rightly be able to repudiate the share in rewards 
also. Let not the flesh share in the sentence, if it 
is not also to blame. Let the soul alone be recalled, 
if the soul alone dies. But in truth it no more dies 
alone than it has passed alone through the course 
from which it withdraws, I mean the present life. 
So far is the soul from passing through life alone 
that we do not even withdraw thoughts from the 

1 On the alliteration, plenum , perfectum, cf. Iloppe, p. 152. 

2 For the sense of repracsentatio, see d Ales, pp. 358 f. 

3 Qnparerc = apparere, see Iloppe, p. 139, n. I. 

4 On this sense of disfungo, see Hoppe, p. 130. 

5 On the ending, cf. c. i and see Iloppe, p. 156. 



15] TERTULLIAN 35 

partnership of the flesh, although they are alone, 
although they are not brought to their result 
through the flesh, since what is done in the mind is 
the action of the soul in, and with, and through the 
flesh. This aspect of the flesh as citadel of the 
soul is attacked by the Lord also when He is 
trouncing the thoughts : " Why think you in your Matt. ix. 4 
hearts what is wicked?" and : " He who hath gazed Matt> Vl 28 
upon to desire, hath already in his heart corrupted." 1 
To such a degree is the act of the flesh apart alike 
from the working and the result of thought. But 
even if the ruling principle of the senses has been 
dedicated 2 in the brain or in the middle between 
the eyebrows, or wherever the philosophers are 
pleased to place it, I mean what is called the 
hegemonicon? every place of thought 4 in the soul 
will be flesh The soul is never apart from the 
flesh, as long as it is in the flesh. Everything acts 
along with that apart from which it does not exist. 
Inquire further 5 whether even thoughts are ad 
ministered by the flesh, since it is through the flesh 
that they become outwardly known. If the soul 
is revolving something, the face produces a sign, 

1 Here Tertullian, in revolt from allegorical interpretation, is 
straining the metaphorical language beyond what it can bear (cf. 
d Ales, pp. 249 f.). 

2 D Ales considers the exact force of consecrare on pp. 367 f. 

3 This is the Greek word which he translates above by princi- 
palitas. Cf. especially De Anima, c. 15, and Usener, Epicurea, 
312, p. 217. 

4 Apparently a translation of the Greek ^povnffTTjpiov (see 
Thesaurus}. 

5 For adhuc = insuper^ praeterea, see Hoppe, p. no. 



36 TERTULLIAN [15, 16 

the face is the mirror 1 of all strivings. 2 Let them 
refuse partnership in deeds to that to which they 
cannot refuse partnership in thoughts. 3 They in 
deed countupthe failingsof the fleshagainst it; there 
fore, being sinful, it will be kept for punishment. We 
indeed face it with the excellences of the flesh ; 
therefore also when it has worked well it will be 
kept for reward. And if it is the soul that leads 
and drives into everything, it is the flesh that obeys. 
God may not be believed to be either an unjust or 
an inactive judge ; unjust, if he debar from rewards 
the partner in good works, inactive, if he separate 
from punishment the partner in evil works, since 
human judgment is regarded as all the more perfect 
in that it demands for justice even the tools of every 
deed, showing them neither mercy nor grudge to 
prevent them from sharing the result either in 
punishment or in favour with the promoters of the 
deed. 4 

1 6. But although we have assigned rule to the 
soul and obedience to the flesh, we have to take 
precaution lest they overturn that too by another 
process of reasoning, in such a manner as to wish to 
put the flesh at the service of the soul in another 
way, not as a handmaid, lest they be compelled to 
recognise it also as a partner. For they will say 
that servants and partners have the choice of 

1 On this metaphor, see Hoppe, p. 214. 

2 For this paratactic construction, where the protasis is expressed 
without the conditional particle, cf. Hoppe, p. 83. 

3 For the rime between factorum and cogitatorum, cf. Hoppe, 
p. 165. 

4 For the ending, cf. c. I and Iloppe, p. 156. 



16] TERTULLIAN 37 

service and partnership, and power over their own 
will in both directions, being themselves also men ; 
that therefore they share deserts with the origin 
ators to whom they have voluntarily lent their 
services ; and that flesh which has no intelligence 
or feeling in itself, and has no willingness or un 
willingness of its own, is rather in attendance on 
the soul like a vessel, as a tool, not as a servant. 1 
That therefore the judge sits in judgment over the 
soul only, judging how it has employed the vessel 
of the flesh, but that the vessel itself is not liable 
to sentence, any more than the cup is condemned 
if some one have put poison in it, or the sword is 
sentenced to fight with wild beasts, if some one has 
worked 2 murder on the highway with it. Thus 
then the flesh will be innocent in so far as evil 
works will not be reckoned against it, and there is 
nothing to prevent its salvation under the plea of 
innocence. For although neither good nor evil 
works are attributed to it, yet it is more becoming 
to the divine kindness to save the innocent. It is 
its duty to save well-doers : but it is a very good 
man who offers even what is not due. And yet, I 
ask you, would you give less condemnation to a 
cup I do not say, a poisoned cup into which some 
dying person 3 has vomited, 4 but one stained by 

1 For mmisterium = ministrum, cf. minister Us, the true 
reading in Apol. 39 (p. no, 1. 30, ed. Mayor), (Lofstedt, Krit. 
Bemerk. z. Tert. Apol., p. 82). 

2 For the periphrastic fuerit operatus, cf. Iloppe, p. 60. 

3 For mors= moriens, cf. Hoppe, p. 94. 

4 This may practically mean " expired with a yawn/ 



38 TERTULLIAN [16 

the breath of a courtesan or a high-priest of Cybele 
or a gladiator or an executioner, than to the kisses 
of these people themselves ? Even one that we 
have ourselves befouled and beclouded ^ or that 
has not been mixed to our liking, it is our habit to 
smash, to show the greater anger with our slave. 
As for a sword that is imbrued 2 in highway rob 
beries, who will not banish 3 it from his whole 
house, not to speak of his chamber or his pillow, 
taking the view, of course, that he would dream of 
nothing else than the reproaches of souls that are 
pressing on and disturbing the bedfellow of their 
own blood ? 4 But in truth the cup that has a 
good conscience 5 and is commended by the care 
of the waiter, will acquire adornment even from 
the garlands of the heavy drinker, or will be 
honoured by the sprinkling of flowers upon it, and 
the sword that was nobly stained in battle and is 
better than a homicide will deem its merits worthy 
of dedication to a god. Is it possible 6 therefore so 
to inflict a sentence both on vessels and on 
tools that they too may share in 7 the deserts of 
their owners and authors ? thus I shall have met 

1 nubilus = sordidus, "turbid," is poetical (Hoppe, p. 179). 

2 On the personification in ebrius, see Hoppe, p. 179. 

3 relegabit : see Oehler s apparatus ; Kroymann s religabit, with 
no critical note, is surely a misprint. 

4 As the sword and the blood on it are in bed together, the sword 
is spoken of as the bedfellow of the blood with which it is stained. 

6 A very striking expression for a cup that has never been used 
for the mixing of poison (cf. Hoppe, p. 179)* 

6 On est with the infin., cf. c. 3 and Hoppe, p. 47. 

7 On commnnicare with the dative in this sense, see Hoppe, 
p. 28. 



16] TERTULLIAN 39 

even that kind of reasoning, although the difference 
of the subject fails to furnish a real illustration. 
For every vessel or tool comes into use from else 
where, being a substance entirely alien to the 
nature of man ; but flesh, having been from its 
beginning in the womb conceived, shaped and be 
gotten together with the soul, is also mingled with 
it in all its working. For, although it is called a 
" vessel " in the writings of the Apostle, who com- i The?s. 
mands us to deal with it " honourably," yet it is lv 
also called by him "the outer man," I mean the cf. 2 Cor. 
clay, which was first engraved with the title " man," 1V I( 
not " cup " or " sword " or any vessel It was called 
"vessel" because 1 of its power to hold, that by 
which it contains and holds together the soul, but 
" man " because it shares the nature which shows it 
to be in its workings not a tool, but a servant. 
So also the servant will be held to judgment, 
although of itself it has no intelligence, because it is 
a part of that which has intelligence, and is not a 
mere chattel. This also the Apostle says, knowing 
that the flesh does nothing of itself that is not to cf. Rom. 
be attributed to the soul : nevertheless he judges V1 
the flesh to be sinful, lest because it seems to be 
urged on by the soul, it should be believed to be cf. Rom. 
freed from judgment. So also when he enjoins on vl 
the flesh some works of merit, he says : " Glorify, i Cor. vi. 
carry God in your body," knowing well that these 2C 
efforts also are due to the soul s impulse. The 

1 On the abl. nomine (= causa) with a genitive, cf. Iloppe, 
p. 30. 



40 TERTULLIAN [16, 17 

reason, however, why he demands them from the 
flesh also, is this : reward is promised to it 
also. Otherwise, neither would reproach have 
been fittingly inflicted on what was removed from 
blame, nor exhortation have been suitably ad 
dressed to what it shut out from 1 glory : for both 
reproach and exhortation would have no place 2 in 
regard to the flesh, if the reward which is the 
prize of resurrection did not exist. 2 

17. Every unsophisticated supporter of our view 
will imagine that the flesh, also, must be brought 
face to face 3 with judgment for the reason that 
the soul cannot otherwise experience torture or 
comfort, seeing that it is incorporeal. This is 
indeed the view of the crowd. But that the soul 
is corporeal we both proclaim here and have 

De Anima proved in the book dealing with it, 4 having a 
special kind of solidity by which it can both feel 
and experience something. For that even now 
souls are tortured and soothed in the world below, 
although unbodied, although exiles also from the 

cf. Luke flesh, may be proved 5 by the case of Lazarus. 6 

xvi. 23-26 

1 On extraneus with the genitive, cf. Hoppe, p. 22 ; contrast 
the use with a earlier in the chapter (cf. Hoppe, pp. 22, n., 36). 

2 Omiacare, "to be purposeless," "not to exist," cf. Hoppe, 
pp. I39_f. ; Mayor on ApoL, I, p. 2, 1. 24 ; u, p. 40, 1. 29. On 
the ending, cf. c. I and Hoppe, p. 156. 

3 On the meaning of repraesentare, see d Ales, pp. 356 ff. 

4 That is, the De Anima. 

5 The fut. indie, where we might expect the "potential" ; cf. 
Hoppe, p. 65. 

6 There is a strong probability that Tertullian said Eleazarus or 
Elazarus, though, judging by Kroymann s silence, the MSS. have 
failed to preserve any trace of this. This suggestion of mine is 
confirmed by the Clairvaux MS. 



17] TERTULLIAN 41 

I have therefore permitted l my opponent to say : 
Consequently that which has a bodily nature 2 of 
its own, will of itself 3 have sufficient power both 
to experience and to feel, so that it will not need 
to be presented 4 in the flesh. Nay rather, its 
need will extend so far, not that it will not be able 
to feel anything without the flesh, but that it must 
feel also along with the flesh. For as much as it 
is able to act of itself, so much also will it be 
able to be acted upon. But to act it is not able of 
itself. Of itself it is able only to think, to will, to 
desire, to arrange, but for accomplishment it waits 
for the help of the flesh. So therefore it demands 
the partnership of the flesh also for experience, 
that it may be able to experience as fully through 
it as without it it could not fully act. And there 
fore it meantime endures the sentence against those 
things, the accomplishment of which it is able of 
itself to achieve, I mean of desire and thought 
and will. Further, if these were enough for full 
ness of rewards, so that deeds would not be also 
sought for, the soul would be entirely equal to the 
task of facing a final judgment, as it is to be 
judged touching those things, to the performance 
of which it had by itself been equal. Since, 

1 Dare with the infin. is an especially poetical construction ; cf. 
Hoppe, p. 43. 

2 Corpulentia in this sense ; cf. Hoppe, p. 120. 

3 De suo, " without the co-operation of another," cf. Hoppe, 
p. 103; compare also in suo (neut.), "in its own kind," which 
occurs three times in Pseudo-Aug. (= Ambst) Quaest. (see my 
index). 

4 On the meaning of repraesentatio, see d Ales, pp. 358 f. 

E 



42 TERTULLIAN [17, 18 

however, deeds also are linked to deserts, and deeds 
are performed by the flesh, it is no longer satisfactory 
that the soul should apart from the flesh be either 
cherished or tortured for what were also the works 
of the flesh. Although it has a body, although it 
has limbs, they are as little able to help it to feel 
as they are also to help it to act perfectly. 
Therefore it is in the measure in which it has 
acted, that it also suffers in the world below, being 
the first to taste judgment, even as it was the first 
to assume sin, though it also of course waits for 
the flesh, that by means of that to which it en 
trusted its thoughts, it may also produce the 
corresponding deeds. For this will be the principle 
of the judgment that is designed for the last end, 
that every divine judgment may be accomplished 
by putting forward the flesh. Otherwise, I mean 
if it were designed for souls alone, the judgment 
would not have to be waited for till the end, because 
even now souls are being tortured l in the lower 
world. 2 

18. Up to this point, you must understand, I 
have been dealing 3 merely in preparatory argu 
ments, 4 with the object of supporting the thoughts 
of all the passages of Scripture 5 that promise the 
restoration of the flesh. Since this is cared for by 

1 Hoppe, p. 181, interprets the old reading decerpunt as 
"enjoy" (a poetical sense of the word). 

2 For this ending cf. c. I and Hoppe, p. 156. 

B For this perf. subjunctive, cf. 5, 8, 12, and Hoppe, p. 67. 

4 On the metaphor from substructures, cf. Hoppe, p. 214. 

5 Scriptura, "passage of scripture," (like ypa^-f]), Hoppe, 
p. 94 n. 



i8] TERTULLIAN 43 

so many influences of just defences, I mean the cc. 5-9 
distinctions of its nature itself, God s strength, the cc. 11-13 
signs of it, and the inevitable reasons for judgment cc 
itself, it will of course be necessary that the scriptures 
should be understood in accordance with the pre- - 
conceived opinions held by so many authorities, 
not in accordance with the clever inventions 1 of 
heretics, which spring from unbelief and unbelief 
alone, because it is regarded 2 as incredible that 
matter once withdrawn by death should be restored, 
not because the matter itself cannot earn this or 
because it is impossible to God or inconceivable. 
Clearly it would be incredible if it had not been 
proclaimed 3 by divine power, if we leave out of 
account the fact that although it had not been 
proclaimed 4 by God, it would have had in any 
case to be taken for granted, and as not having 
been proclaimed for the reason that it had been 
presupposed 5 by reason of the number of authorities 
supporting it. But since it sounds clearly through 
divine utterances also, there is all the less reason 
for understanding it otherwise than is desired by 
those elements by which it is convincingly shown 6 
even without divine words. Let us therefore see 

1 On the plural of ingenium in this sense, see Hoppe, p. 93, 
Mayor on Apol., 15, p. 50, 1. 8. 

2 habeatur habetur, cf. Hoppe, p. 76. 

3 Hoppe (p. 66) expands and explains as = incredibile (sc. evil = 
esset), si n p.d. fuerit (= fuisset or esset], and thinks praedicatum 
fuerit is future perfect. 

J For the periphrastic praedicatum fuisset, cf. Hoppe, p. 6r. 
5 For the alliteration and rime in praedicatum, praeiudicatum, 
cf. Hoppe, p. 167. 

On this constr. see Hoppe, p. 15, n.*2. 



G 



44 TERTULLIAN [18 

this first, on what pretext this hope has been 
dismissed. One, I believe, over all is God s 
impending edict : " resurrection of the dead." Two 
words, simple, decisive, terse ! 1 To these I will 
address myself, these I will consider: to what 
nature do they refer ? When I hear that resurrec 
tion awaits a man, I must needs ask what part of 
him has happened to fall, since nothing will expect 
to rise again except what has previously fallen. 
He who knows not that the flesh falls through 
death, is capable of not knowing that it stands 
through life. Nature proclaims aloud the sentence 

Gen.iii. 19 of God : "Earth thou art and into earth thou 
shalt pass," and he who does not hear this, sees 
it : every death means the fall of the body. That 
this is the lot of the body was made clear by the 
Lord also, when He himself, being clothed with a 

John iii. 19 material body, said: "Destroy this temple, and I 

cf. John ii. will raise it again on the third day." For he 
showed to what part destruction applies, what part 
it is that is dashed down and lies there, what part 
also it is that is lifted up and raised again, and 

cf. Matt, yet it carried 2 a quaking soul as far as death, a 
soul which would not however fall through death 

John ii. 21 because scripture also says : " He had spoken of 
His body." And so true is it that it is the flesh 
that is destroyed by death, that it gets the name 

1 On the alliteration in decisa, detersa, cf. Iloppe, pp. 117, 150, 
who says detersa is for tersa ("easily understood, definite, proper 
words"), the variation being due to the determination to produce the 
alliterative effect. 

2 Quamquam with subjunctive ; cf. Hoppe, p. 78. 



i8] TERTULLIAN 45 

cadaver (corpse) from the fact that it falls. But 
the soul has no suggestion of fall in its name 
because there is no falling in its nature either. 
And yet it is the soul that brings a fall upon the 
body, when it has been breathed out, even as it is 
the soul also which by entering into it raised it 
from the ground ; that which on entering had 
power to raise, cannot itself fall ; that which on 
passing out laid low, cannot itself fall. I will 
speak more emphatically : the soul does not fall 
along with the body even into sleep, not even then 
is it laid low with the flesh, but it is really moved 
and tossed about 1 in sleep ; but it would be at rest 
if it were prostrate. So what does not fall into its 
image, does not fall into the reality 2 of death either. 
Consider now similarly to what nature the following 
word applied to the dead really belongs. Although 
we admit 3 in this connexion that mortality is 
sometimes assigned 4 to the soul by heretics in such 
a way that, if a mortal soul will obtain resurrection, 
there is a presumption that the flesh also, which is 
not less mortal, will share in resurrection, yet now 
the special character of the name must be claimed by 
its own lot. Already indeed for the very reason 
that resurrection belongs to something fallen, 
namely the flesh, it will also be used in connexion 

1 On iactitare, synonym of agitare, see Hoppe, p. 118. 
a Abl. for accus. ; cf. Hoppe, p. 41. For ueritate mortis = uera 
morte, cf. Hoppe, p. 86. 

3 Subjunctive after quamquam ; cf. an earlier instance in this 
chapter, and Hoppe, p. 78. 

4 For ace. and infin. with admittere, cf. Hoppe, p. 50. 



46 TERTULLIAN [18, 19 

i Cor. xv. with what is dead, 1 because " the resurrection " 

as it is called "of the dead" is the resurrection of 

a thing that has fallen. We learn this also through 

cf. Rom. Abraham, " the father " of trust, the man who was 

cf. James on terms of friendship with God. For when he 

cf 2 Gen t( " Begged a place of "the sons of Heth" to bury 

xxiii. 3. Sarah, 2 he said : " Grant me then the tenancy of a 

Gen. xxin. t om b among you, and I will bury my dead," 

meaning the flesh. For he would not have desired 

room to bury the soul, even if the soul were 

believed to be mortal, and if it deserved to be 

called "a dead person." But if a dead person 

is a body, when the expression " resurrection of 

the dead " is used, it will mean a resurrection of 

bodies. 

19. This examination, therefore, of its title and 
contents, 8 which of course supports belief in the 
names, will have to proceed to such a point that, 
if the opposition creates any confusion by the 
pretext of figures and riddles, all the most evident 
facts may predominate and from uncertainty 
may enjoin certainty. For certain people, having 
acquired the ordinary manner of prophetic diction, 
being very often, but not always, addicted to 
cf. i Cor. allegory and figures, pervert even " the resurrection 
xv. 14, etc. Q f t^ dead^ . clearly as it has been proclaimed, 
to a figurative sense, and aver that even death 
itself must be understood in a spiritual sense. 

1 A reference again to the derivation of cadauer from cadere. 

2 For this dative after the substantive, cf. Hoppe, p. 56. 

3 Praeconium in the sense " what is contained in the proclama 
tion," "contents"; cf. Hoppe, p. 123. 



ig] TERTULLIAN 47 

The death that is visible 1 to all, the severance 

of flesh and soul, they say, is not real death, but 

real death is ignorance of God, through which a 

man dead to God lies no less in the tomb than 

in error. That that therefore also must be claimed 

to be resurrection by which a man on coming up 

to reality, is reanimated and revivified to God, 

the death of ignorance being dispersed, 2 and breaks 

forth as it were from the tomb of " the old man," c f. Eph. 

for, they say, even the Lord compared " the 5Ji a " etc 

Scribes and Pharisees " to " whitened tombs." xxiii. 27 

From this then it follows that they have by faith 

attained resurrection with "the Lord," when they 

" have put Him on " in baptism. By this device, cf. Gal. ii. 

too, it has been their frequent custom to trick our 27 

people even in conversation, pretending that they 

themselves also admit the resurrection of the flesh. 

" Woe to him," they say, " who in this flesh has not 

risen again " ; this they say lest the others should 

at once inflict injury on them, if they at once 

deny the resurrection. But in the secret of their 

own consciousness this is what they believe : " Woe 

to him who while he is in the flesh, does not learn 

the heretical secrets " 3 : for this is what they 

mean by " resurrection." But very many also who 

maintain the resurrection of the soul from death, 

interpret "coming out of the tomb" as meaning 

1 On the adverbial phrases in media and in uero, cf. c. 1 1 and 
Hoppe, p. 100. 

a On discutere metaphorically used, as in the poets, cf. Hoppe, 
P l8 3- 

3 On this passage, see d Ales, p. 318. 



48 TERTULLIAN [19, 20 

escaping from the world," because the world also 
is a dwelling-place of the dead, that is of those 
that know not God, or even "from the body" 
itself, because the body also like a tomb holds 
the soul fast closed up in the death of worldly 
life. 1 

20. Because then such are the conjectures they 
put forth, I will upset their first argument, 2 by 
which they make out that all the utterances of 
the prophets were figurative; whereas, if it were 
so, not even the figures themselves could be 
distinguished, unless the realities also had been 
preached, 3 from which the figures were sketched. 
And, further, if everything was figurative, what will 
that be which the figures represent? How will 
you hold out the mirror in front, if there is a face 
nowhere? Again, everything does not consist of 
representations, but there are also realities, even- 
thing does not consist of shadows, but there are 
also bodies, so that even in the case of the Lord 
Himself the more notable characteristics are pro- 

cf. Matt. i. claimed as clear as daylight. For the " virgin 
both conceived in the womb" non-figuratively, and 
bore " Emmanuel, God with us," in no indirect 
way ; and if it be true that it is only figuratively 

Isa. viii. 4 that " He will receive the strength of Damascus 

1 This ending -^-^^^ is found only in 33 passages (Hoppe, 
p. 156). 

1 I am strongly tempted to think that Tertullian wrote printum 
(adv.), and that it has been naturally assimilated to the gendtr of 
pr&structionem. 

3 For the periphrastic conjugation, prcrdicatae fuissent, cf. 
Hoppe, p. 61. 



20] TERTULLIAN 49 

and the spoils of Samaria," it is at least quite 

evident that " He will come into judgment with isa. Hi. 14 

the elders and leading men 1 of the people." For 

"the nations made a disturbance" in Pilate s Ps. ii. 1-2 

person, "and the peoples practised vain things" 

in the person of Israel : " the kings of the earth 

stood up," namely Herod : "and the rulers assem 

bled together," namely Annas and Caiaphas, 

"against the Lord and against His Anointed." 2 

And " He," too, " was led as a lamb to slaughter," Isa. liii. 7 

and "as a lamb before the shearer," who is, of 

course, Herod. Voiceless "thus He opened not c f - Isa - 1-6 

His mouth" "placing His back conveniently for cf. Matt. 

the lashes and His cheeks for the palms of their x 

hands, and not turning away His face from the 

arrows 3 of their spittings ; " " reckoned also among Isa. Mil. 12 

the unjust," " His hands and feet 4 pierced," suffer- xxvii.^, 

ing the casting of lots over His garment and the 35, 39; . 

cf. Ps. xxi. 

bitter draughts and the mocking shakes of heads, 17 ; Luke 
being valued at thirty silver pieces by the traitor. X J 9 ?s 
What figures are there to be found in Isaiah, what xxi! 19; 



pictures are there in David, what riddles in Jere- 
miah, who proclaimed not even his mighty works cf - I> 

Ixviii 22 

in parables ? Or were the " eyes of the blind " not X xi. 8 
"opened" or did "the tonque of the dumb" not cf - ^. Iatt - 

xxvii. 9 

speak clearly ? Did not " the withered hands and cf. Jer. 



the unstrung knees recover strength"? Did 

6-9 ; Zech. 

1 For the alliteration in presbyteris and principibus, cf. Hoppe, xi. 12 
p. 152. cf. Isa. 

2 On the allegorical interpretation here, see d Ales, pp. 243 f. xxxv. 5 

3 A striking variation on the alcrxvvrjs (shame) of the prophet. cf. Isa. 

4 On the so-called Greek accusative, see Iloppe, p. 17. xxxv. 3 



50 TERTULLIAN [20, 21 

cf. Isa. " the lame leap like a goat " ? And even if it is our 

xxxv. 6 

habit to interpret these spiritually also, by com 
parison with the physical defects healed by the 
Lord, since l however they were fulfilled also in 
the flesh, they show that the prophets preached 
in both ways, without harm to Him, for many of 
their words can be claimed to be unadorned and 
simple and clear from 2 any mist 3 of allegory: 
as when the dooms of nations and cities sound 
cf. Isa. forth, of Tyre and Egypt and Babylon, Edom and 
"iiii.i-13, tne ships of Carthage, 4 as when they relate the 
xi - J 4 plagues or pardons of Israel itself, its captivities, 
its restorations and the doom of the last scattering. 
Who will interpret those any more than under 
stand them ? Facts are preserved in writing just 
as writing is read in facts. So not always nor in 
every case is the allegorical manner of prophetic 
utterance to be found, but only sometimes and in 
certain cases. 

21. If therefore "sometimes, and in certain 
cases," you say, why not also in the proclamation 
of a resurrection which is to be spiritually under 
stood ? Because, as a matter of fact, many a reason 
forbids. For, in the first place, what will so many 
other divine passages do which so clearly attest a 
bodily resurrection that they do not admit any 
suspicion of a figurative meaning ? And in any case 

1 On causal cum, with the indicative, cf. Hoppe, p. 80. 

2 For purus ab, cf. Hoppe, p. 36. 

3 On the poetical nubilum, cf. c. 16 and Hoppe, p. 179. 

Bi 



4 He had Kapx^j/os, "Carthage" in his Bible; the Hebrew 
gives "Tarshish," "the best identification of which still seems to be 
Tartessus in Spain" (Prof. G. Buchanan Gray on Isaiah ii. 16). 



21] TERTULLIAN 51 

it would be just, as we insisted above, that un- c. 19 
certain things should be judged from certain x and 
obscure things from evident, if only to prevent 
amidst the disagreement of the certain and the un 
certain, the clear and the obscure, the destruction 2 
of belief, the perilous state of truth, the branding 
of divinity itself as fickle. 3 In the second place, 
there is the improbability that such a mystery to 
which one s whole belief is resigned, towards which 
all teaching presses, 4 should appear to have been 
preached in doubtful terms and darkly set forth, 
since the hope of resurrection, unless quite clear 
about the risk and the reward, would never prevail 
upon any one 5 to devote himself, particularly to a 
religion of that kind, exposed to the hatred of the 
people and the accusations of enemies. No definite 
task receives uncertain pay, no justifiable fear 
springs from a doubtful risk. Both the reward and 
the risk depend on the result of resurrection. And 
if temporal and local and individual decrees and 
judgments of God were so openly launched 6 by 
prophecy against cities and peoples and kings, how 
absurd it is to suppose that His everlasting and 
universal arrangements for the whole human race 
shunned their own 7 light ! The greater they are, 

1 On this maxim, see d Ales, pp. 242 f. 

2 On the metaphor in dissipare, cf. Hoppe, p. 185. 

3 Cf. d Ales, p. 244. 

4 On the combination of alliteration and rime in committitur, 
conititur, cf. Hoppe, p. 167. 

5 On pursuadere with the ace. of the person, cf. Hoppe, p. 15. 

6 On this military metaphor, cf. Hoppe, p. 182. 

7 On the subjective use of the objective genitive sui, cf. Hoppe, 
p. 1 8. 



52 TERTULLIAN [21, 22 

the more evident they ought to be, that their 
greatness may be believed. And I fancy that 
neither jealousy nor cunning nor fickleness nor 
enticement can be attributed to God, though the 
authorities make frequent use of these qualities in 
their quibbling 1 proclamations. 2 

22. We must next have regard to those scriptures 

cf. i Cor. also, which in the view of these sensuous, 3 not to 

11. 14, etc. Ca ]j4 them spiritual people, forbid resurrection either 

to be conceived of as taking place here and now 

in the recognition of truth or to be claimed to occur 

the moment life has ended. Since, however, even 

the seasons for all our hope are fixed by the holy 

writings, 5 at the Advent, I take it, of Christ, and 

they may not be fixed eirlier, our prayers sigh for 6 

the end of the present age, 7 for the passing of the 

cf. Zeph. universe too, for " the great day of the Lord," 

iloJix? " the da y" of wrath and "of repayment," the Last 

7; Isa. Day, hidden as it is and "known to none but the 

Ixi. 2 

cf. Matt. Father," and yet indicated beforehand by "signs 

XX1 ^V 36 and portents" and clashes of elements and "colli 
er. Matt. 

xxiv. 24 sions 8 of nations." I should have gone through 
cf. Luke 

xxl 2 5 * Thes. takes cauillari here as depon., but Hoppe (p. 62) here 

and in c. 35 (after Neue-Wagener) as passive. 

2 On this ending, cf. c. I and Hoppe, p. 156. 

3 On Tertullian s use of the word animalis, generally of heretics 
(here of Valentinians, who believed in the resurrection of the 
anima), see d Ales, p. 454. 

4 On the perf. subjunctive in final clause, cf. Hoppe, p. 67. 

6 For this meaning of stilus, see Hoppe, p. 123, who renders 
"/ the holy writings." 

6 For the poetical suspirare with the accusative, cf. Hoppe, 
p. 1 6. 

7 A collection of passages showing this attitude in d Ales, p. 446. 

8 Hoppe (p. 120) takes it of "afflictions, torments." 



22] TERTULLIAN 53 

the prophecies, if the Lord Himself had said 
nothing but we must remember that the pro 
phecies themselves were the Lord s word but it 
means more that He sealed them with His own 
lips. When asked by His pupils when those cf. Matt, 
things were to happen which He had meantime ke xxi 



e xx 
blurted out about the end of the temple, He sets 7 

cf Malt 
forth the order of history, first Jewish history till xx i v> 2 ; 

the destruction of Jerusalem, then general history ^ uke xxi - 
till the end of the age. For after He had pro- cf. Matt. 
claimed: "And then will Jerusalem be trampled ** L 5 u ^ e 
upon by the heathen, until the history of the xxi. 8-28 
heathen be completed," who are of course to be 2 ^ v< 
selected by God and to be collected along with the 
remainder of Israel, then for the world and for the 
age He preaches, according to Joel and Daniel cf. Joel ii. 
and the whole council of prophets, the "signs" 3/4) 
that will come to pass "in the sun and moon and c f. Dan< 

vn. 13 

stars, the end 1 of the heathen, with stupefaction Luke xxi. 
at the roar of the sea, and the movement of men 25 ~ 2 
turning cold with terror and waiting for those 
things that threaten the world. For the powers of 
the heavens," He says, " shall be shaken, and then 
shall they see the Son of Man coming on the 
clouds with much power and glory. But when 
these things have begun to take place, you will 
come forth and raise your heads, because your 
redemption has come near." And yet He said it 
was " approaching," not that it was now present, cf. Luke 

xxi. 20 

What is meant by conclusioncm here is as uncertain as what is 
meant by the Greek word it represents, awoxh. Read con- 
cilssionem ? 



54 TERTULLIAN [22 

cf. Luke and " when these things have begun to take place," 

Q t> C> 

not when they have taken place, 1 because when 
they have taken place, then " your redemption " 
will be at hand, which is said "to be approaching" 
up to that point, lifting up meantime and arousing 
your spirits to the now near realisation of hope, of 
which also a parable is subjoined about the trees 
sprouting into the tender shoot, which is the fore 
runner of the blossom and thereafter of the fruit, 
cf. Matt. "So also you, when you have seen all this taking 
Lukexxi. place, must know that the kingdom of God is at 
l!uke xxi hand." " Be watchful therefore at all times, that you 
36 may be deemed worthy to escape 2 all these things 

and may stand before the Son of Man," of course by 
means of resurrection, all other things having first 
been gone through. So although it sprouts at the 
recognition of the mystery, yet it is in the presenta 
tion 3 of the Lord that it begins to blossom and to 
bear fruit. 4 Who, therefore, has aroused the Lord 
already so unseasonably, so unripely, from God s 
cf. Isa. ii. right hand, " to smash the earth," according to 
Isaiah, which earth is, I suppose, still unharmed ? 
Ts. cix. i Who has already "put Christ s enemies under His 
feet," according to David, being swifter than the 
Father, while all the assembly of citizens besides 
are shouting against them : "the Christians to the 
lion " ? 5 Who has seen Jesus " descending from 

1 For the periphrastic conjugation, cf. Iloppe, p. 60. 
3 For dignus with the infin. , cf. Hoppe, p. 49. 

3 On this word, see d Ales, p. 359. 

4 Note the alliteration and the rime (Iloppe, p. 163). 

5 Cf. Apol. 40, p. 116, 1. 17 ed. Mayor, with his copious note. 



22, 23] TERTULLIAN 55 

heaven in such guise as " the apostles " had seen cf. Acts i. 
Him," according to the command of the angels? J 
Till now no "tribe has mourned for tribe," recog- cf. Zech. 
nising Him " whom they have pierced," no one as 



yet has " welcomed Elijah," no one as yet has xii. 10 
"fled" from antichrist, no one as yet has " wept i v . 4 (iu. 
for Babylon s end " : but there is already One who ?3) > cf ;, 

Kev. xii. o 

has risen again, but He is a heretic. Clearly He cf. Rev. 
has gone forth already from the tomb of the body, xvm> 9 I0 
though He is even now subject to fevers and sores, 
and He has already " trampled His enemies under cf. PS. lv. 
foot," though He has 1 even now " to struggle with f Eph 
the powerful ones of the universe," and of course vi. 12 
He already reigns, though even now He feels 
bound "to render unto Caesar the things that are cf. Matt. 
Caesar s." 2 

23. The Apostle teaches, it is true, when writing 
to the Colossians, that we were once dead, " alien- cf. Col. i. 
ated from and hostile to the thoughts " of the 
Lord, when we were occupied " in evil works," but 
that afterwards we were " buried with " Christ " in cf. Col. ii. 
baptism " and " raised together in Him through I2 
faith in the working of God who raised Him from 
the dead : " " And you, when you were dead in sins Col. ii. 13 
and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made to 
live together with Him, forgiving you all your 
sins," and again : " How do you vote like certain Col. ii. 20 
people living in the world?" But although he 
represents us as thus dead spiritually, while at the 

1 On habere with infin. = " must," cf. Hoppe, p. 44. 

2 On the ending, cf. c. I and Hoppe, p. 156. 



56 TERTULLIAN [23 

same time he recognises that we shall one day die 
also bodily, assuredly also in like manner, when he 
regards us having been raised in a spiritual sense, 
he equally refrains from denying that we shall also 
Col. iii. i, rise in a bodily sense. For he says: " If ye have 
risen with Christ, seek those things which are 
above, where Christ is seated on the right hand of 
God ; have that wisdom which is above, not that 
which is below." Thus he shows that it is in mind 
we rise again, since it is with mind alone that we 
can as yet touch heavenly things. These we 
should not seek or understand, if it did not possess 
Col. iii. 3 them. He also adds : (< For ye are dead " mean 
ing, to trespasses, not to yourselves "and your 
life is hid with Christ in God." Therefore the life 
that is hidden, is not yet seized. So also John 
i John iii. sa y S : " And it hath not yet been made clear what 
we shall be. We know that 1 if he makes it clear, 2 
we shall be like Him." So far are we from being 
now what we know not ; for certainly we should 
know if we were that now. Thus at this stage it 
is merely a contemplation of our hope through 
faith, not a realisation, 3 not a possession, but 
merely an expectation. Touching this hope and 
Gal. v. 5 expectation Paul says to the Galatians : " For we 
in spirit through faith wait for the hope of 
righteousness." He does not say " we grasp " ; by 
" righteousness " he means God s as the result of the 

1 For this guia, followed by the indicative, cf. Hoppe, p. 76- 

2 Mr. Baxter suggests si <se> inanifestanerit : Clairvaux MS. 
has si manifeslatus erit. 

3 On reprcesentatio^ see d Ales, p. 359. 



23] TERTULLIAN 57 

judgment by which a judgment will be given about 
the reward. It is when expectant with regard to 
it that he himself, in writing to the Philippians 
says : " If by any means I may run to the resurrec- Phil. Hi. 
tion which is from the dead ; not that I have already I] 
received or am perfected." And of course he had 
believed and had learned all the mysteries, "aActsix. 
vessel of election," " the teacher of the nations," J^fim ii 
and yet he adds : u But I follow on if so be that I 7 
may seize that in which I have been seized by I2 
Christ." And further : " I do not think, brethren, Phil. Hi. 
that I have grasped it : but one thing is clear ; I3) I4 
forgetting what is behind, and stretching forwards, 
I press onward towards the mark, to the prize 
of innocence" 1 through which I must run: of 
course to resurrection from the dead, but, " at Gal. vi. 9 
its own proper time," as he says to the Galatians : 
" But let us not be weary in well-doing, for in due Gal. vi. 9 
season we shall reap," even as he says also to 
Timothy about Onesiphorus : " The Lord grant 2 Tim. i. 
Him to find mercy on 2 that Day." With a view l8 
to "that Day" and time he instructs Timothy i Tim. vi. 
himself also "to keep the command unstained and I4 I5 
irreproachable, against the appearing of the Lord 
Jesus Christ, whom at the proper time the blessed 
and only Potentate and King of Kings will reveal," 

1 This remarkable text presupposes Q-veyxXTHTttDS or aveyK\r]aia.s 
in the Greek text from which Tertu lian s translation comes, instead 
of the accepted text avca /cA^crews. MSS. known to Origen had 
also the same reading (see my apparatus to the Revises Greek 
Testament, ad loc.\ Cf. d A es, pp. 241 f. 

2 For the in uhh this al.-l. (taken perhaps straight from the 
Greek), cf. Iloppe, p. 31. 

F 



58 TERTULLIAN [23, 24 

meaning God, concerning which time Peter also 
Acts iii. speaks in Acts : " Repent ye, therefore, and pay 
heed to the wiping out of your sins, that seasons of 
refreshing from the face of the Lord may come 
upon you, and that He may send the Christ erst 
while appointed for you, who must receive the 
heavens even unto the seasons of establishment of 
all things that God hath spoken by the mouth of 
the holy prophets." x 

Actsiii. 21 24. What those "seasons" are, learn with the 
i Thess. i. Thessalonians. For we read : " How ye turned 
from images to serve the living and true 2 God, and 
to await the arrival from the heavens of His son 
whom He hath raised from the dead, even Jesus." 
i Thess. And again : " For what is our hope or joy or 
chaplet of exultation, save that ye also may be in 
presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at his coming ? " 
i Thess. Also : " In presence of God and our Father at the 
coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all His 
saints." And when he is teaching about their 
cf. i Thess. " falling asleep," as no subject for " mourning, he 
also sets forth the seasons of resurrection : " For if 
we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so 
God will also bring with Him those that slept 
through Jesus. For this we say to you in the 
Lord s word, that we who are alive, and who are 
waiting behind till the arrival of our Lord, shall 
not precede those that have slept, since the Lord 
himself with the command and with the voice of an 

1 For this ending, cf. c. I, and Iloppe, p. 156. 

2 Note the (unavoidable) alliteration here in uiuo, uero (Iloppe, 



24] TERTIJLLIAN 59 

archangel and the trumpet of God will descend 
from heaven ; and those that died in Christ will 
rise again first, then we that are alive, and we shall 
be raised along with them in the clouds to meet 
Christ in the air, and thus we shall always be with 
the Lord." What " archangel s voice," what " trump i Thess. 
of God " has been already heard, save perchance in ^ 



the rooms of heretics ? For although " the trump iv. 16 
of God " may be a name for the word of the Gospel, j Vt Z 6 
which has already called them, yet they will either 
have died already in a bodily sense to rise again, in 
which case how do they live ? or they will have been 
snatched away into the clouds, and in that case, 
how are they here? They are "pitiable" indeed, 
as the Apostle proclaimed, who will be deemed 
"to hope in this life only," shutting out, while they cf. i Cor. 
first snatch at it, what is promised after the present xv> 
life, being " deceived with respect to l the truth " no cf. i Tim. 
less than " Phygelus and Hermogenes " were. And c f/| Tim. 
therefore the greatness of the Holy Spirit which l - 1 5 
understands thoughts of that kind, gives a hint also 
in that very epistle to the Thessalonians : " With i Thess. 
regard to the seasons and the periods of time, v< 
brethren, there is no need to write to you. For ye 
yourselves know most surely that 2 the Day of the 
Lord will come exactly like a thief in the night. 
When they shall say peace and all is safe/ then 
sudden ruin will press upon them." And in the 
second epistle addressed with greater anxiety to 

1 For this use of circa, cf. Hoppe, p. 37. 

2 For this quod followed by indie., cf. Hoppe, p. 75. 



6o TERTULLIAN [24 

2 Thess. the same : " I beseech you, brethren, by the coming 
of our Lord and our assembling with Him, not to 
be quickly stirred in mind or disturbed, either by a 
spirit or by a word," he means of false prophets, 
"or by a letter," he means of false apostles, "as if 1 
it were from me, to the effect that the Day of the 
Lord is imminent. Let no one mislead you in any 
way ; since unless the withdrawal come first," that 
is of this kingdom, " and the man of sin be revealed," 
that is the antichrist, " the son of perdition, who 
offers opposition and raises himself above every 
thing that is called God or religion, actually 
seeking to sit in God s temple, declaring himself 
to be God. Do you not remember that when I 
was with you, I told you this? And you know 
what is holding him back, that he may be revealed 
at the proper season. For at this time the secret 
of iniquity is working : 2 only let him who is now 
holding him back, continue to do so till he dis 
appear." Who is he but the Roman constitution, 
cf. Rev. whose passage to "ten kings" will bring on the 
2 V Thess scattered powers of antichrist ? " And then shall 
be revealed the unjust one whom the Lord Jesus 
will slay with the breath of His mouth and will 
bring to naught by the appearance of His coming, 
whose coming is according to the working of Satan 
in all power and signs and portents of falsehood 
and in every seduction of unrighteousness for them 
that are perishing." 

1 "For ac si = quasi, cf. Hoppe, p. 84, who notes that Tert. 
wished to avoid a second quasi. 
Cf. d Ales, p. 319. 



11. o-io 



25] TERTULLIAN 61 

25. Also in the Apocalypse an order of seasons 
is set forth, 1 which even " the souls " of the martyrs, cf. Rev. 
clamouring for vengeance and judgment " under V1> 9 I0 
the altar," have learned to endure, that first the 
world on the 0112 hand may have full ex 
perience of 2 its u plagues" from "the bowls of cf. Rev. 
the angels," and that prostituted city may meet xv ^ 
with a deserved end at the hands of " the ten cf. Rev. 
kings," and " the beast," which is antichrist, with XV11< I2 
"its false prophet" may bring a conflict upon the cf. Rev. 
Church, and thus when "the devil has" meantime X f X R g 
" been banished to the bottomless pit," the privilege xx. 2, 3 
of the first resurrection may be ordered from "the J^. 4^ 
thrones," and thereafter, when he has been given cf - Rev - 
over to the fire, the judgment of the universal 
resurrection may be given from " the books." c f. Rev, 
Since, therefore, the Scriptures both mark the xx> I2 
positions of the seasons and place the whole result 
of the Christian hope at the end of the age, it is 
clear either that everything promised us by God is 
then fulfilled in which case what the heretics 
maintain in this connexion falls to the ground 3 
or, if resurrection is also a recognition of the truth 
of doctrine, 4 it is believed of course without pre 
judice to that which is proclaimed as taking place 
at the last ; and it follows that in the same 
way as the spiritual character of the latter is 

1 On this sense of sternere, see Hoppe, p. 191. 

2 On metaphors from drinking, cf. Hoppe, p. 181. 

3 On this sense of uacare, see Hoppe, p. 140. 

4 On this sense of sacrajnentum, "doctrine, objective faith," as 
in cc. 21, 22, 23, 63, see E. de Backer, Sacramenium . . . 
(Louvain, 1911). pp. 23-41. 



62 TERTULLIAN [25, 26 

maintained, the physical character of the former 
is believed ; because, if none were then preached, 
naturally this alone, a merely spiritual, resurrec 
tion would be maintained, but since it is pro 
claimed also for the end of time, it is recognised 
to be physical, because there would not be pro 
claimed for that time also a resurrection of the 
same character, I mean a spiritual resurrection, 
since it would be fitting that it should be com 
pleted either now without any postponement of 
distinction between the seasons, or at that time 
at the final end of time. Thus it becomes us better 
to maintain the spiritual character of resurrection 
also from the beginning of our faith, since we 
recognise its completeness at the end of the world. 1 
26. One word more 2 I will answer to the view 
adduced above that certain passages must be in 
terpreted allegorically, namely that we also may 
maintain a bodily resurrection, by the support of 
prophetic language which is equally figurative. 3 
For look at the Divine sentence at the begin- 

Gen. iii. ning, declaring man to be earth : " Earth th