On the Resurrection of the Dead

1Every doctrine and argument that holds to the truth about what exists has something false growing beside it. But this falsehood does not grow from some underlying principle that moves according to nature, or from the cause proper to each thing as it actually is. It is cultivated by people who honor lawless sowing for the corruption of the truth.

This can be seen first from those who long ago devoted themselves to thinking about these matters and from the disputes they had with their own predecessors and contemporaries, and not least from the very confusion of the arguments being tossed around in public. For such people have left nothing true uncalumniated: not the being of God, not His knowledge, not His activity, not the things that follow these in order and trace out for us the argument of piety.

Some despair of the truth about these matters entirely and once for all. Others twist it to suit their own opinions. Still others make a practice of raising difficulties even about things that are evident.

For this reason I think those who labor over these subjects need two kinds of arguments: some on behalf of the truth, and some about the truth. The arguments on behalf of the truth are for those who disbelieve or doubt. The arguments about the truth are for those who are well-disposed and receive the truth with goodwill.

Because of this, those who wish to examine these matters must look to the need at hand in each case and measure their arguments by it. They must also adjust the order of these arguments to what is fitting, and not, by seeming always to keep the same starting point, neglect what is appropriate and the place that belongs to each argument.

For when it comes to demonstration and natural sequence, the arguments about the truth always stand first, ahead of the arguments on behalf of it. But when it comes to what is more useful, the order is reversed: the arguments on behalf of the truth come before the arguments about it.

A farmer could not properly cast seed into the ground without first removing the wild growth that harms the cultivated seed being sown. A doctor could not put any healthy medicine into a body that needs treatment without first purging the evil already present or checking the evil flowing in. Nor could someone who wishes to teach the truth, when speaking about the truth, persuade anyone if some false opinion is lurking in the minds of the hearers and opposing the arguments.

So we too, looking to what is more useful, sometimes place the arguments on behalf of the truth before the arguments about the truth. And it seems not useless to do the same now in the case of the arguments about the resurrection, as we consider what is fitting.

For in these matters as well we find some who disbelieve entirely, some who doubt, and even among those who have accepted the first principles, some who are just as perplexed as those who doubt. And the most unreasonable thing of all is that they suffer this while having no basis at all from the facts for their disbelief, and while finding no reasonable cause they can state for why they disbelieve or are perplexed.

2Let us consider the matter this way. If any disbelief arises in people not hastily or from some unexamined opinion, but only when it comes with a strong cause and with the certainty that accords with the truth does it preserve the reasonable account—namely, when the very thing disbelieved appears to be unbelievable. For to disbelieve things that are not unbelievable is the work of people who are not using sound judgment about the truth. Therefore those who disbelieve or are perplexed about the resurrection must not declare their opinion about it hastily, according to what merely seems right to them and what pleases the undisciplined. They must either attach no cause at all to the origin of human beings—which is very easy to refute—or, if they attribute the cause of existing things to God, they must look to the foundation of this doctrine and show through it that the resurrection has no credibility anywhere. They will do this if they can demonstrate that it is either impossible for God or unwilled by God to unite again and gather together bodies that have died or been completely dissolved, toward the constitution of the same human beings. If they cannot do this, let them cease from this godless disbelief and from blaspheming what is not right. For it will become clear from what follows that they are not speaking the truth when they say it is impossible or unwilled.

A thing is known to be truly impossible for someone either because he does not know what is going to happen, or because he does not have sufficient power to accomplish well what he knows. For someone who is ignorant of something that must happen could neither raise up nor accomplish at all what he does not know. And someone who knows well what is to be done, and knows from what source and how it could come about, but either has no power at all to do what he knows or does not have sufficient power, would not attempt it in the first place if he were prudent and examined his own power; and if he attempted it recklessly, he would not complete what he had decided.

But it is not possible for God to be ignorant of the nature of the bodies that will be raised, in whole and in every part, nor of where each of the dissolved things goes, and which part of the elements has received what was dissolved and moved toward what is akin to it—even if what has been naturally united again to the whole seems entirely indistinguishable to human beings. For the one who was not ignorant before each thing's own constitution—neither of the nature of the elements that would come to be, from which human bodies are made, nor of the parts of these elements from which he was going to take what seemed good for the constitution of the human body—clearly will not be ignorant after the whole has been dissolved of where each of the things he took for the completion of each body has gone. For as far as concerns the order of things now prevailing among us and our judgment about other things, it is greater to know in advance things that have not yet come to be; but as far as concerns the worth of God and his wisdom, both are natural, and it is equally easy for him to know things that have been dissolved as to know in advance things that have not yet come to be.

3Moreover, the very origin of these bodies shows that God's power is sufficient for the resurrection of the bodies. For if he made human bodies and their first principles when they did not exist at their original constitution, he will also raise them after they have been dissolved, in whatever manner it happens, with equal ease; for this too is equally possible for him. And the argument suffers no harm whether some suppose the first principles to be from matter, or human bodies to be from the elements as first things, or from seeds. For the power that is able to shape what they consider formless matter, to adorn what is shapeless and unordered with many different forms, to gather the parts of the elements into one, to divide the seed that is one and simple into many, to articulate what is unarticulated, and to give life to what is not living—that same power is able to unite what has been dissolved, to raise what lies fallen, to make alive again what has died, and to change the corruptible into incorruptibility. And it would belong to the same power and wisdom also to separate from there the thing scattered among a multitude of all kinds of animals—as many as are accustomed to attack such bodies and gather their fill from them—and to unite it again to its proper parts and members, whether it has passed from those animals into one animal or into many, or from there into others, or whether, dissolved together with those very animals, it has been carried back to the first principles according to the natural dissolution into them. This is what seemed especially to trouble some, even among those admired for wisdom, who somehow considered strong the perplexities brought forward by the many.

4These people say that many bodies of those who die hard deaths in shipwrecks and rivers become food for fish. Many others who die in wars or from some harsher cause and circumstance, and so lack burial, lie exposed as prey for whatever animals come upon them.

When bodies are consumed in this way, they say, and the parts and members that make them up are shattered into a great multitude of animals and united through food to the bodies of those that feed on them, the first impossibility is separating these parts out again. The second difficulty is even more perplexing.

For when the animals that have devoured human bodies, as many as are suitable for human food, pass through their stomachs and are united to the bodies of those who have eaten them, it is absolutely necessary, they say, that the parts of those human beings, as many as became food for the animals that ate them, pass over into other human bodies. The animals fed on them in between convey the food from which they were nourished into those human beings for whom they became food.

Then they add in tragic style the eating of children dared in famines and fits of madness, the sons devoured by their own parents through the plotting of enemies, that famous Median table, the tragic feasts of Thyestes, and other such calamities invented among Greeks and barbarians.

From these they construct, as they suppose, the impossibility of the resurrection. The same parts cannot rise again together with different bodies. Either the parts of the first bodies cannot be reconstituted, since the parts that made them up have passed over to others, or, if those parts are given back to the first bodies, the bodies of the later ones will be lacking.

5It seems to me that such people are, first of all, ignorant of the power and wisdom of the one who created and governs this whole universe. He fitted to each animal's nature and kind the food proper and suitable to it. He did not ordain that every nature should proceed to union or blending with every body, nor is he at a loss when it comes to separating what has been united. Instead, he permits each created thing's nature to do or undergo what it is naturally fitted for, while at other times he restrains it, and he allows or redirects everything he wills toward whatever end he wills.

Beyond these points, they have also failed to examine the power and nature of each thing that feeds or is fed. If they had, they would have known that not everything someone takes in under the pressure of external necessity becomes food proper to the animal. Some things, as soon as they come into contact with the folds of the stomach, are naturally destroyed, vomited up, passed through, or expelled in some other way, so that they do not endure even briefly the first and natural digestion, let alone the blending into the one being fed.

Likewise, not everything that has been digested and undergone the first change necessarily approaches the parts being nourished. Some things are separated out by the nutritive power in the stomach itself, while others are separated during the second change and the digestion that takes place in the liver, and they pass over to something else that has gone beyond the power of nourishing. And not all of the change that takes place in the liver itself proceeds to become food for humans; rather, it is separated into the waste products it is naturally fitted to produce.

Moreover, the food that remains in the very parts and members being nourished sometimes changes into something else, according to the dominance of what is in excess or superabundant, which is accustomed to corrupt in some way or turn toward itself whatever approaches it.

6Since, then, there is great natural difference among all living creatures, and even the food that is according to nature changes along with each kind of animal and with the body being nourished, and since a threefold cleansing and separation takes place in the food of every animal, everything foreign to the animal's food must necessarily be destroyed and pass off in the way nature has appointed, because it cannot be blended with the body. But the power of the body that nourishes must correspond to the powers of the animal being nourished and be according to nature. This food, after passing through the criteria nature has appointed and being thoroughly cleansed by the natural purifications, becomes a most pure assimilation into substance. Only this could anyone rightly call food, if he is speaking accurately about the facts, since it casts off everything foreign and harmful to the constitution of the animal being nourished, along with all that great bulk brought in to fill the stomach and satisfy the appetite.

No one would dispute that this food is united to the body being nourished, since it is interwoven with and molded around all its parts and members. But food that is in a different condition and contrary to nature is quickly destroyed if it is mixed with a stronger power, while it easily destroys the power that has been overcome, and it turns into harmful humors and poisonous qualities, since it brings nothing proper or friendly to the body being nourished. The greatest proof of this is that pain, danger, or death follows for many of the animals being nourished when, under the force of a violent appetite, something poisonous and contrary to nature is dragged in mixed with the food. This would certainly be destructive of the body being nourished, if indeed living creatures are nourished by what is proper and according to nature, and destroyed by what is contrary.

If, therefore, the food that is according to nature is mixed according to the differences of animals that differ in nature, and if not everything an animal takes in, nor any random part of it, admits of blending with the body being nourished, but only what has been cleansed through the whole process of digestion and has been purely changed for union with the particular body and is well fitted to the parts being nourished, then it is clear that nothing contrary to nature could ever be united to those things for which it is not suitable and appropriate food. Rather, it either passes off in the stomach itself before producing any other humor, raw and corrupted, or if it remains longer it produces suffering or a disease hard to cure, which destroys along with it the food that is according to nature, or even the very flesh that needs food. And even if it is ever expelled, overcome by certain drugs or better foods or the natural powers, it flows out with no small harm, since it brings nothing peaceful to the things that are according to nature, because it cannot be blended with nature.

7But suppose someone grants that the food entering from these bodies, and let this be said in the more customary way, even though it is contrary to nature, is separated and transformed into one of the moistening, drying, heating, or cooling substances. Even so, nothing useful will come to them from what has been granted. The bodies that are raised are composed again from their own proper parts, and none of the things mentioned is a part, nor does it hold the relation or order of a part. Nor does it always remain with the parts of the body that are nourished, nor is it raised together with the bodies that are raised, since it no longer contributes anything to life: not blood, not phlegm, not bile, not breath. For the bodies that are nourished will not need then what they once needed, because the need for the things from which they were nourished is destroyed along with the lack and corruption of the things that are nourished.

Then, even if someone supposes that the change from such food reaches as far as flesh, there will still be no necessity that the flesh newly changed from such food, having approached another human being's body, should again serve as a part to complete that body. For the flesh that receives it does not always preserve what it has received, nor is the flesh united to it permanent and remaining with the parts which by nature bind, cover, or warm the flesh selected by nature and grown to those parts, the flesh with which nature completed the life according to nature and the labors in that life.

But neither when the matters just examined are judged as they should be, nor when the arguments developed against them are accepted by concession, is it possible to show that what is said by them is true. Nor could the bodies of human beings ever be blended with bodies of the same human nature, even if through ignorance they are ever robbed of perception by sharing in another such body, even if they are defiled on the spot by a body of the same kind through lack or madness. Unless, of course, we have failed to notice that there are certain human-shaped beasts, or beings with a mixed nature from humans and animals, such as the bolder poets are accustomed to invent.

8And why should I speak of bodies that have been allotted to no animal as food, but have received burial in the earth alone as their portion, in honor of nature? For the Maker has not allotted to any animal another animal of the same kind as food, even if among some of the different kinds one becomes food according to nature. If, then, they can show that human flesh has been allotted to humans for eating, nothing will prevent mutual eating from being according to nature, just like any other thing permitted by nature—and nothing will prevent those who dare to say such things from feasting on the bodies of their dearest ones as more fitting food, or even from feasting their closest friends with these very things. But if it is not even lawful to say this, and if for humans to share in human flesh is something most hateful, utterly defiled, and more accursed than every unlawful and unnatural eating or act, and if what is contrary to nature could never pass into food for the parts and members that need it, and if what does not pass into food could never be united to those things it is not naturally able to nourish, then neither could the bodies of humans ever be blended with bodies like them, for which they are food contrary to nature—even if through some most bitter misfortune they often pass through the stomach of these. Departing from the nourishing power and being scattered again toward those things from which they had their first composition, they are united to them for whatever time each happens to last. But when they are separated from there again, by the wisdom and power of the One who blended every animal nature with its proper powers, each is united fittingly to each—whether burned by fire, rotted away by water, consumed by beasts or by whatever animals happen upon them, or a part cut off from the whole body and dissolved before the other parts. And when they are united again to one another, they hold the same place for the harmony and composition of the same body, and for the resurrection and life of the one who has died or been completely dissolved. It is not the right time to prolong these matters further, for the judgment is agreed upon—at least by those who are not half-beasts.

9Many considerations would be more useful for the present inquiry, but for now I reject those who flee for refuge to the works of humans and to the human makers of those works. These makers cannot renew their works when they are broken, aged by time, or destroyed in some other way, and then from this likeness to potters and carpenters they try to show that God either would not wish or, if he did wish, would not be able to raise up a body that has died or been dissolved. They do not reckon that by these arguments they insult God in the worst way, making equal together the powers of things that are entirely distinct—or rather, making equal the substances of those who use these powers, and the artificial things with the natural things. To be zealous about such people, then, is not free from blame, for it is truly foolish to argue against superficial and empty objections. Yet it is far more honorable and truest of all to say that what is impossible for humans is possible for God. And if the argument shows through these very things, as reputable, and through all that was examined a little earlier, that it is possible, then it is clear that it is not impossible. Nor, indeed, is it unwilled.

10For what is unwilled is unwilled either because it is unjust to him or because it is unworthy of him. And again, what is unjust is considered either with respect to the one who will be raised himself or with respect to someone else besides him. Now it is clear that none of those outside and numbered among existing things is wronged. For neither would the intelligible natures be wronged by the resurrection of human beings—the resurrection of human beings is no hindrance to their existence, no harm, no outrage—nor indeed would the nature of irrational creatures or of lifeless things be wronged, for they will not exist after the resurrection, and nothing unjust can be done to what does not exist. But even if someone should suppose that they exist forever, they would not be wronged when human bodies have been renewed. For if now, yielding to the nature of human beings and to their needs when they are in want, they are brought under the yoke and into every kind of slavery and are not wronged, much more, when human beings have become incorruptible and free from need and no longer require their service, and they themselves have been released from all slavery, they will not be wronged. For if they had a voice, they would not accuse the Creator of being unjustly diminished in comparison with human beings because they did not obtain the same resurrection as these. For where the nature is not equal, the Just One does not measure out an equal end. And apart from these things, among beings that have no judgment of what is just and no accusation of injustice, there is no wrong.

Nor indeed is it possible to say that some injustice is considered with respect to the human being who is raised himself. For this being is composed of soul and body, and the injustice attaches neither to the soul nor to the body. No one in his right mind will say that the soul is wronged, for in doing so he will inadvertently cast out the present life as well. For if the soul now dwelling in a corruptible and passible body is not wronged, much more will it not be wronged when she lives together with an incorruptible and impassible body. But neither is the body wronged at all. For if now, being corruptible, it is joined to the incorruptible and is not wronged, it is clear that when it is incorruptible and joined to the incorruptible, it will not be wronged. Nor indeed would anyone say that it is an unworthy work of God to raise up and gather together the body that has been dissolved. For if the worse thing is not unworthy—that is, making a corruptible and passible body—much more is the better thing not unworthy, which is incorruptibility and impassibility.

11If each of the points under examination has been demonstrated through what is first by nature and what follows from these, then it is quite clear that the resurrection of dissolved bodies is a work that is possible, willed, and worthy of the one who created them. For through these arguments the falsehood opposed to them has been exposed, along with the unreasonableness of those who disbelieve.

Why should I speak of how each of these points turns back against each of them, and of their connection with one another, if indeed one should even call it a connection, as though they were separated by some otherness, rather than saying that what is possible is also willed, and that what is willed by God is altogether possible, and in keeping with the worth of the one who willed it?

That the argument about the truth is one thing and the argument on behalf of the truth is another has been stated in due measure in what has gone before: how each differs, and when and toward whom each has its usefulness. But perhaps nothing prevents us, for the sake of common safety and of the connection of what has been said with what remains, from making a fresh start from these very points and what belongs to them.

It was fitting for the one to hold first place by nature, and for the other to serve as bodyguard to the first, making a road and clearing away beforehand everything that stands in the way and is steep. For the argument about the truth, being necessary for all human beings for safety and salvation, stands in the front rank by nature, by order, and by need: by nature, because it provides knowledge of the facts; by order, because it exists in these very things and at the same time as the things of which it becomes the revealer; by need, because it becomes the provider of safety and salvation for those who know.

The argument on behalf of the truth is inferior in nature and power, for refuting falsehood is less than strengthening the truth; and it is second in order, for it has its force against those who hold false opinions. And false opinion has grown up from an oversowing and a corruption.

But even though these things are so, the latter is often placed first and sometimes becomes more necessary, since it removes and clears away beforehand the disbelief that troubles some, and the doubt or false opinion among those who are just now approaching. Each of the two is directed toward one end: both the one who refutes falsehood and the one who strengthens the truth have their reference to piety. Yet they are not altogether one and the same. The one is necessary, as I said, for all who believe and who care for the truth and for their own salvation; the other is sometimes more necessary for certain people and toward certain persons. Let these things be said by us in summary form as a reminder of what has already been stated.

We must now proceed to the matter at hand and demonstrate that the argument for the resurrection is true, starting from its cause, the cause according to which and through which the first human being came to be, and those after him, even if they did not come to be in the same manner, and from the common nature of all human beings as human beings, and further from the judgment of the one who made them upon these things, according to how long each one lived and according to the laws by which each conducted his life, a judgment that no one would dispute is just.

12The argument from cause runs like this. We must examine whether the human being came into existence simply and to no purpose, or for the sake of something. If for the sake of something, then we must ask whether that something is the very living and continuing in the nature in which he was made, or whether it is for the use of someone else. And if for use, then is it for the use of the maker himself, or of some other being that belongs to him and has been counted worthy of greater care?

When we consider this more broadly, we find that every person of sound mind who is moved by rational judgment to do something does nothing he undertakes on purpose to no end. He acts either for his own use, or for the need of some other being for whom he cares, or for the sake of the thing itself that comes into being, moved by some natural attraction and affection toward its existence. Let me use an illustration to make the point clear. A man builds a house for his own use. He also builds shelter suited to each of the animals he lacks, oxen, camels, and the rest. He does not build these for his own use, as it appears. In their final purpose they are for the animals' sake, but in their immediate purpose they are for the care of the animals he tends. He also begets children, not for his own use and not for the sake of anything else that belongs to him, but so that those born from him may exist and continue as long as possible. By the succession of children and descendants he consoles himself for his own death, and in this way he thinks he makes the mortal immortal.

But these examples come from human beings. God, however, would not have made the human being to no purpose, for he is wise, and no work of wisdom is pointless. Nor would he have made him for his own use, for he lacks nothing at all. To the one who needs nothing whatsoever, none of the things made by him could contribute anything for his own use. Nor did he make the human being for the sake of any of the works made by him. For none of the beings that use reason and judgment, whether greater or lesser, has come into being or comes into being for the use of another, but for the life and continuance of the beings themselves that have come to be.

Reason finds no need that could be the cause of the creation of human beings. The immortal beings lack nothing and have no need of any contribution from human beings for their existence. The irrational animals are by nature ruled, and they fulfill for human beings the uses for which each was made by nature, but they are not by nature meant to make use of human beings in turn. For it was not and is not lawful for what rules and leads to be subjected to the use of what is lesser, or for the rational to be subordinated to the irrational, which are unfit to rule.

Therefore, if the human being did not come into being without cause and to no purpose, for nothing made by God is pointless, at least according to the purpose of the maker, and if he did not come into being for the use of the maker himself or of any other of the works made by God, then it is clear that, according to the first and more general account, God made the human being for his own sake and for the goodness and wisdom seen throughout all creation. According to the account more immediate to the things made, he made him for the life of the beings themselves that came into being, a life not kindled for a short time and then completely extinguished.

For to creeping things, I think, and to winged creatures and swimming creatures, or to speak more generally, to all irrational beings, God assigned such a life. But to those who bear in themselves the image of their maker, who carry with them a mind and share in rational judgment, the maker allotted an everlasting continuance. He did this so that, knowing their maker and his power and wisdom, and following law and justice, they might continue forever without distress together with those things by which they confirmed their previous life, even while they were in corruptible and earthly bodies.

For whatever has come into being for the sake of something else will reasonably cease to exist when those things for whose sake it came into being cease, and it would not continue to no purpose, since nothing pointless has any place among the things made by God. But things that came into being for the very sake of existing and living as their nature requires, since their cause is bound up with their nature and is seen in their very existence, could never admit any cause that completely destroys their existence.

Since this cause is always seen in their existence, the living being that has come into being must certainly be preserved, acting and being acted upon as its nature requires. Each of the two parts from which it was made contributes what belongs to it. The soul exists and continues unchanged in the nature in which it was made, and it works at what it is fitted for. For it is its nature to preside over the impulses of the body and to judge and measure whatever befalls it by the proper criteria and measures. The body moves according to nature toward what it is fitted for, and receives the changes allotted to it. Along with the other changes according to the stages of life or form or size, it receives the resurrection. For the resurrection is a kind of change, and the last of all, and the change of those still living at that time to the better.

13We take courage from these things no less than from what has already happened, and we also examine our own nature. We embrace the life that involves need and decay, since it belongs to this present existence, and we firmly hope for continuance in incorruptibility. We do not invent this hope from human sources, deceiving ourselves with empty expectations. Rather, we have trusted in a most unerring guarantee: the purpose of the one who made us. According to that purpose, God made the human being from immortal soul and body. He also equipped the human being with mind and an innate law for salvation and for the keeping of what God had given, gifts suited to a rational life and an intelligent way of living. We know well that God would not have fashioned such a living creature and adorned it with everything needed for continuance unless he willed that what came into being should continue.

If, then, the maker of this universe made the human being in order to partake of intelligent life, and made him a beholder of God's magnificence and of his wisdom over all things so that he might continue forever in the contemplation of these things, according to the maker's purpose and the nature he received, then the cause of his coming to be vouches for continuance forever, and continuance vouches for the resurrection, without which a human being could not continue. From what has been said, it is quite clear that the resurrection is plainly demonstrated by the cause of his coming to be and by the purpose of the one who made him.

Since this is the cause for which the human being has been brought into this world, it would be fitting to examine the argument that follows from this by nature and in due order. In this examination, next after the cause of coming to be comes the nature of human beings who have been born. What follows the nature of those who have come to be is the just judgment of the maker concerning these things. And what follows all these is the end of life. Since the matters set out first have been examined by us, we must next consider the nature of human beings.

14A demonstration of the doctrines of truth—or of whatever is put forward for examination—brings unerring conviction to what is said. It does not take its starting point from somewhere outside, nor from what seems right or has been decided by certain people, but from the common and natural conception or from the sequence of what follows from first things. For either the subject concerns first doctrines, and then only a reminder is needed to stir the natural conception; or it concerns what follows by nature from first things and from the natural sequence, and then order is required. In that case we must show what truly follows from the first things or from what has been set down before, so that we neither neglect the truth or the certainty that belongs to it, nor confuse what nature has ordered and distinguished, nor tear apart the natural chain.

For this reason I think that those who have taken the present subject seriously, and who wish to judge sensibly whether or not there is a resurrection of human bodies, should first examine carefully the force of the arguments that contribute to demonstrating it, and what place each one has received: which of them is first, which second, which third, and which comes last after these. After arranging these matters, they should place first the cause of the creation of human beings—that is, the purpose of the one who created them, according to which he made the human being. To this they should fittingly attach the nature of the human beings who have come to be, not because it is second in rank, but because judgment cannot be made about both at the same time, even though they coexist with each other as much as possible and provide equal force for the present question.

Through these arguments, as first principles that have their origin in creation, the resurrection is clearly demonstrated. No less can conviction about it be gained through the arguments from providence—I mean through the honor or punishment owed to each human being according to just judgment, and through the end of human life. For many who discuss the argument for the resurrection have rested the whole cause on the third thing alone, thinking that the cause is judgment. But this is plainly shown to be false by the fact that all human beings who die are raised, yet not all who are raised are judged. If the justice of judgment were the only cause of the resurrection, then surely those who have neither sinned nor done right—that is, very young children—would not be raised. But since all are raised, both others and especially those who died in their first age, they themselves confirm that the resurrection does not occur primarily because of judgment, but because of the purpose of the one who created them and the nature of those who were created.

15The cause seen in the creation of human beings is enough by itself to show that the resurrection follows the dissolved bodies by a natural sequence. Even so, it is perhaps right not to shrink from any of the questions that have been set before us. In keeping with what has been said, I should also point out to those who cannot see it for themselves the starting points supplied by each of the things that follow. Before all the others, I should point to the nature of the human beings who have come into being, which leads to the same thought and provides equal confidence about the resurrection.

For the whole common nature of human beings has its constitution from an immortal soul and the body fitted to it at birth. God did not allot such a birth or life or the whole course of life to the nature of the soul by itself, nor to the nature of the body separately. He allotted it to the human beings who come from these two, so that from the things by which they are born and live they may pass through life and come to one common end. Since there is one living being from both, the one that suffers whatever belongs to the soul and whatever belongs to the body, and that acts and does whatever requires sense perception or rational judgment, it is absolutely necessary that the whole chain of these things be referred to one end. Everything in every way must run together toward one harmony and the same sympathy: the birth of a human being, the nature of a human being, the life of a human being, the actions and sufferings of a human being, and the life and the end proper to that nature.

If there is one harmony of the whole living being and one sympathy, both of the things that spring from the soul and of the things accomplished through the body, then the end of all these things must also be one. And there will truly be one end, since the same living being exists according to its own constitution, and the end is the end of that very being. The same living being will exist in a pure sense when all the same parts from which the living being is composed, as from its parts, are present. And the same parts will exist according to their proper union, when the dissolved parts are united again for the constitution of the living being.

The constitution of the same human beings necessarily shows that the resurrection of the bodies that have died and been dissolved follows. For without this, the same parts could not be united to each other according to nature, nor could the nature of the same human beings be constituted.

Mind and reason have been given to human beings for the discernment of intelligible things, not only of realities, but also of the goodness and wisdom and justice of the one who gave them. Since the things for whose sake rational judgment was given continue to exist, it is necessary that the judgment given for these things also continues to exist. But it is impossible for this judgment to continue unless the nature that received it, and the nature in which it resides, also continues. The one who received mind and reason is the human being, not the soul by itself. Therefore the whole person, the one who is from both, must continue forever. But it is impossible for this human being to continue unless he is raised. For if the resurrection does not happen, the nature of human beings as human beings would not continue.

If the nature of human beings does not continue, then the soul has been fitted to the body's need and to its sufferings in vain. The body has been bound in vain to obtain what it desires, yielding to the soul's reins and being bridled. Mind is vain, and wisdom is vain, and the observance of justice, and the practice of every virtue, and the establishment and ordering of laws. To say it all at once, everything good among human beings and for human beings is vain, and even more, the very birth and nature of human beings is vain. But if the vain has been driven out from all the works of God and from all the gifts given by him, then the continuance of the body according to its own nature must absolutely endure together with the endless existence of the soul.

16No one should be surprised if we call a life that is cut short by death and decay a continuance. The word does not mean one thing, and continuance does not have one measure, because the things that continue do not have one nature. Each thing that continues has its continuance according to its own nature. So among things that are purely incorruptible and immortal you would not find an equal continuance, since the substances of the higher beings are not made equal to those that differ by being inferior. Nor is it right to demand for human beings that smooth, unchanging continuance.

The beings that existed from the beginning are immortal and continue endlessly by the purpose of their Maker alone. Human beings, however, have an unchanging continuance in soul from birth, but in body they receive incorruptibility in addition through change. This is what the doctrine of the resurrection intends. Looking toward it, we await the dissolution of the body, since it follows a life marked by need and decay, and after that we hope for a continuance with incorruptibility. We do not make our death equal to the death of irrational animals, nor do we make the continuance of human beings equal to the continuance of the immortals. Otherwise we would without realizing it make human nature and life equal to things to which they do not belong.

So it is not right to be troubled if some irregularity is observed in the continuance of human beings. Nor, because the separation of the soul from the parts and members of the body and their dissolution cuts short continuous life, should we for that reason despair of the resurrection. Sleep brings natural relaxations of the senses and natural powers, and people sleep for measured intervals of time and then in a way come back to life. We do not refuse to call this the same life, even though these relaxations seem to cut short the life of conscious awareness. For this reason, I think, some call sleep the brother of death. They are not tracing a genealogy as if the two were born from the same ancestors or parents, but because similar experiences come to those who have died and those who sleep: the stillness, the lack of awareness of what is present or happening, and not even awareness of being or of one's own life.

Human life is full of so much irregularity from birth to dissolution, and it is cut short by all the things we have mentioned. Yet we do not refuse to call it the same life. So we ought not to despair of the life beyond dissolution, which brings the resurrection with it, even if it is cut short for a time by the separation of the soul from the body.

17For this is the nature of human beings: from the beginning, by the purpose of the Maker, it has been allotted an irregular course, and so its life and continuance are irregular. At one time they are interrupted by sleep, at another by death, and by the changes that come with each stage of life, since what comes later is not clearly visible in what comes first. Who would ever have believed, without being taught by experience, that in seed which is uniform and still being formed there lie stored up so many and such great powers, or that from it would arise such different masses as they are joined and compacted together—I mean bones, sinews, cartilage, and also muscles, flesh, entrails, and the remaining parts of the body? For none of these can be seen while the seeds are still fluid, nor is anything that belongs to the mature visible in infants, nor what belongs to those past their prime visible in the mature, nor what belongs to the aged visible in those past their prime. And yet, although some of these things show the natural sequence and the changes that come to human nature either not at all or only dimly, all who are not blinded by wickedness or carelessness in judging these matters know that first the deposit of the seeds must take place; then, when they have been articulated into each part and member and those conceived have come forth into the light, there follows growth in the first stage of life, then completion through growth, and after completion a decline of the natural powers until old age, and finally, when the bodies have grown weary, their dissolution. Just as in this case—where the seed does not have the life or form of human beings written into it, nor does life have its dissolution back into its first elements written into it—the chain of natural events gives faith to those who do not find what is trustworthy in the appearances themselves, so much more does reason, tracing out the truth from the natural sequence, confirm the resurrection, since it is more reliable and stronger than experience for establishing the truth.

18All the arguments we set out earlier for examination, which confirm the resurrection, are of one kind, since they spring from the same starting point. Their starting point is the origin of the first human beings in creation. But some of them draw their strength from that very first beginning from which they grew, while others, following along with the nature and life of human beings, receive their credibility from God's providence over us. For the cause according to which and for which human beings came into being is joined together with human nature and has its force from creation, while the argument of justice, according to which God judges human beings who have lived well or badly, has its force from their end. They grow from that first beginning, but they are suspended more from providence.

Since we have demonstrated the first arguments as well as we could, it would be good also to demonstrate the matter at hand through the later arguments. I mean through the honor or punishment owed to each human being according to just judgment, and through the end of human life. But before these very arguments we should place the one that leads according to nature, and first examine the argument about judgment. We should say only this much beforehand, with the care appropriate to the beginning and order of the matters before us: those who have accepted God as the maker of this universe must attribute the guardianship and providence of all that has come into being to his wisdom and justice, if they are willing to remain true to their own first principles. And holding these convictions about these matters, they must consider nothing on earth or in heaven to be without a guardian or without providence, but must recognize that the care from the maker extends through everything unseen and seen alike, small and greater.

For everything that has come into being needs the care of its maker, and each thing needs it in particular according to what it is by nature and for what it is by nature. I think it would be a useless display of ambition to want to go through now or divide up and list what is suitable for each nature. The human being, however, about whom we are now proposing to speak, needs food as a needy creature, succession as a mortal creature, and judgment as a rational creature. If each of these things belongs to a human being by nature, and he needs food for life, succession for the continuance of the race, and judgment for the lawfulness of food and succession, then it is surely necessary that, since food and succession are directed toward the whole person, judgment is also directed toward this same thing. I mean by the whole person the human being made of soul and body, and such a human being becomes accountable for all that has been done and receives honor or punishment for these things.

If just judgment brings punishment for deeds upon the whole person, and neither the soul alone should receive the wages for what was done with the body, for the soul by itself is not affected by the offenses that occur in bodily pleasures, foods, and indulgences, nor the body alone, for the body by itself is unable to discern law and justice, but the human being made of these receives judgment for each of the things he has done, then reason finds that this does not happen in this present life. For what is according to merit does not obtain in the present life, because many godless people who practice every lawlessness and wickedness continue to the end without experiencing evils, and on the contrary those whose lives have been proven in every virtue live in pains, in insults, in slanders, in abuses and all kinds of sufferings. Nor does it happen after death, for the whole person no longer exists, since the soul is separated from the body and the body itself is scattered again into those things from which it was gathered together, no longer preserving anything of its former nature or form, or at any rate even the memory of what was done. So what remains is clear to everyone: according to the apostle, this corruptible thing must put on incorruptibility, so that, when the dead have been made alive by the resurrection and the separated or completely dissolved parts have been united again, each person may justly receive what he did through the body, whether good or bad.

19Against those who acknowledge providence and accept the same principles as we do, but then somehow fall away from their own assumptions, one could use arguments like these, and many more besides, if one wished to expand what has been said briefly and in summary. But against those who differ about the first principles, it would perhaps be well to lay down another starting point before these, joining with them in perplexity about their opinions and examining together with them such questions as this: Has human life been utterly overlooked, and the whole of existence, with some deep darkness poured over the earth, hiding in ignorance and silence both human beings themselves and their deeds? Or is it far more certain to believe that the maker stands over his own works, as overseer of all things that in any way exist or come to be, and judge of deeds and purposes?

For if no judgment anywhere ever comes upon what human beings have done, they will have nothing more than the brute animals. Rather, they will fare more miserably than even those. They restrain their passions and devote themselves to piety and justice or the rest of virtue, while the beastly life is best, virtue is folly, the threat of penalty is a broad joke, serving every pleasure is the greatest good, and the common doctrine of all these and their one law is the motto dear to the licentious and lustful: "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die." For the end of such a life is not even pleasure, as some say, but complete insensibility.

But if the maker of human beings has any care for his own works, and the distinction between those who have lived well or badly is preserved somewhere, then either it happens in the present life, while those who have lived according to virtue or vice are still alive, or after death, when they are in separation and dissolution. But according to neither of these alternatives is it possible to find just judgment preserved. For neither do the good in the present life receive the rewards of virtue, nor do the wicked receive those of vice.

I pass over saying that, if the nature in which we now exist were preserved, mortal nature could not bear a penalty proportionate to the greater number or weight of the offenses committed. For a robber or ruler or tyrant who has unjustly killed thousands upon thousands could not pay the penalty for these things with one death. And one who holds no true opinion about God, but lives in every outrage and blasphemy, neglecting divine things, overthrowing laws, outraging children and women alike, unjustly razing cities, burning houses with their inhabitants, devastating the countryside, and with these things destroying peoples and nations or even a whole race, how could he in a corruptible body suffice for a penalty proportionate to these deeds, when death anticipates what is deserved and mortal nature is not sufficient even for one of the things he has done? So neither in the present life is judgment according to what is deserved shown, nor after death.

20For either death is the complete extinction of life, the soul being dissolved together with the body and destroyed along with it, or the soul remains by itself indissoluble, unscattered, and incorruptible, while the body is destroyed and dissolved, no longer preserving any memory of what was done or any awareness of what it suffered. If human life is completely extinguished, then clearly no care will be shown for human beings who no longer live, and there will be no judgment for those who lived in virtue or in wickedness. Instead, the practices of lawless life will roll in again, along with the swarm of absurdities that follow them, and the chief point of this lawlessness: godlessness. But if the body is destroyed and each of its dissolved parts goes to what is akin to it, while the soul remains by itself as incorruptible, even so there will be no place for judgment against it, since justice would not be present. For it is not lawful to suppose that any judgment comes from God and by God unless what is just belongs to it. And what is just does not belong to the judgment unless the one who performed the justice or the lawlessness is preserved. For the one who performed each of the deeds in life on which judgment is passed was a human being, not a soul by itself. To speak in summary, this argument will preserve justice in no case.

21For when good deeds are honored, the body will clearly be wronged: it shared with the soul in the labors spent on what was pursued, but it does not share in the honor given for what was accomplished. The soul often receives pardon for certain offenses because of the body's lack and need, yet the body itself is shut out from sharing in the rewards for the good deeds—rewards for which it bore the labors together with the soul during life.

And further, when offenses are judged, justice is not preserved for the soul if it alone pays the penalty for what it did wrong when the body was troubling it and dragging it toward its own appetites or movements—sometimes toward seizure and theft, sometimes toward a more violent pulling, and at other times toward a coming together in the way of favor and care for its constitution.

Or how is it not unjust for the soul to be judged by itself for things for which it has no appetite, no movement, no impulse at all according to its own nature—such as lust, violence, greed, injustice, and the wrongs that follow from these? For if most such evils arise because human beings do not master the passions that trouble them, and they are troubled by the body's lack and need and by the effort and care devoted to it—since for the sake of these come all possessions and, before possessions, their use, and also marriage and all the actions of life, in which and around which both what is faulty and what is not are observed—where is the justice in this: the body first suffers and drags the soul into sympathy and partnership in the actions it needs, yet the soul alone is judged? The appetites and pleasures, and also fears and griefs—on which every excess is liable to punishment—have their movement from the body, but the sins arising from these and the punishments for the sins are carried to the soul alone, which neither needs any such thing nor desires it nor fears or suffers anything of the sort by itself, the sort of thing a human being naturally suffers.

But even if we grant that the passions belong not to the body alone but to the human being—and we say this rightly, because his life is one made from both—we certainly will not say that these things belong to the soul, whenever we examine its own nature purely. For if it is entirely without need of all food, it would never desire those things it in no way needs for its existence, nor would it set out toward any of those things it is not at all naturally suited to use. Nor would it grieve over a lack of money or possessions, since these do not belong to it at all.

And if it is superior to corruption, it fears nothing whatever as destructive of itself. For it does not fear hunger, disease, mutilation, injury, fire, or iron, since it cannot suffer anything harmful or painful from these; neither bodies nor bodily powers touch it at all.

But if attaching the passions to souls as proper to them is absurd, then carrying the sins that come from these and the punishments for them to the souls alone is surpassingly unjust and unworthy of the judgment of God.

22In addition to what has already been said, is it not absurd to hold that virtue and vice cannot even be conceived in the soul alone—since we recognize that the virtues are virtues of a human being, just as the vice opposed to them is not that of a soul separated from the body and existing by itself—yet the honor or punishment for these is borne upon the soul alone?

How could anyone even conceive of courage or endurance in a soul by itself? It has no fear of death, wound, mutilation, loss, or outrage, nor of the pains that come from these or the suffering they cause.

How could self-control and temperance exist in it, when no desire draws it toward food or sexual union or the other pleasures and delights, and nothing else troubles it from within or provokes it from without?

How could prudence exist in it, when there are no things to be done or not done, no things to be chosen or avoided, laid before it—indeed, when it has no movement at all or natural impulse toward any of the things to be done?

And where at all is justice between souls natural to them, or justice toward anything else of the same kind or of a different kind, when they have no source, no means, and no manner by which to assign what is equal according to worth or proportion—the honor toward God being excepted—and when they have no impulse or movement either to use what is their own or to abstain from what belongs to others?

For the use of natural things, or abstinence from them, belongs to beings made by nature to use them; but the soul needs nothing and is not naturally suited to use anything or anyone, and for this reason the so-called proper activity of the parts cannot be found in a soul that is in such a condition.

23And indeed the most unreasonable thing of all is this: they bring the laws decreed for human beings, yet they turn the penalty for things done lawfully or unlawfully upon souls alone. For if the one who received the laws would also justly accept the penalty for lawbreaking, and it was a human being who received the laws, not a soul by itself, then a human being must undergo the penalty for sins, not a soul by itself. God did not decree to souls that they abstain from things that in no way pertain to them: adultery, murder, theft, robbery, dishonor toward parents, and in general every desire that leads to injustice and harm of neighbors.

For the command, "Honor your father and your mother" (Exodus 20:12), is not fitting for souls alone, since such names do not pertain to them. Souls do not beget souls and so claim the title of father or mother; rather, human beings beget human beings. Nor would "You shall not commit adultery" (Exodus 20:14) ever be rightly spoken or understood of souls, since in them there is no distinction of male and female, no fitness for intercourse with anyone, and no desire for it. Where there is no such desire, intercourse cannot occur. And where there is no intercourse at all, there is no lawful intercourse, which is what marriage is. Where there is no lawful intercourse, there can be no unlawful desire or intercourse with another man's wife, and that is adultery.

Nor is the prohibition of theft or of greed for what belongs to another fitting for souls. They do not need the things that those who are in want are accustomed to steal or plunder because of natural lack or need: gold, silver, an animal, or anything else suited for food, shelter, or use. For everything that the needy desire as useful is useless to an immortal nature.

But let the more complete argument about these matters be left to those who wish to examine each point more carefully or to contend more vigorously against opponents. Since what has just been said is sufficient for us, along with what agrees with it in confirming the resurrection, there is no longer any occasion to dwell on these things at greater length. For our aim has not been to omit nothing that could be said, but to show in summary form to those assembled what they ought to think about the resurrection, and to measure the starting points that lead to it by the force of what is present.

24Now that the questions set before us have been examined to some degree, what remains would be to examine the argument from the end. This argument has already appeared in what has been said, but it needs only so much attention and addition that we do not seem to leave unmentioned any of the things said by us briefly, or to harm the subject or the division made from the beginning. For the sake of these things, then, and of the things that will be pressed upon these, it would be well to indicate only this much: that there must be a proper end of each of the things constituted by nature and of the things produced by art. The common understanding of all people teaches us this, and the things before our eyes bear witness to it.

For do we not observe that one end underlies farming, and another underlies medicine, and again that one end belongs to the things that grow from the earth, and another to the animals that are nourished upon it and are born according to a certain natural sequence? But if this is clear, and if the end according to nature must in every case follow the natural or artistic powers and the activities that come from them, then it is absolutely necessary that the end of human beings, since it belongs to a nature that is distinct, be removed from the commonality of the others. For it is not even lawful to suppose that the same end belongs to those who lack rational judgment and to those who act according to the innate law and reason, who employ intelligent life and justice.

Therefore freedom from pain could not be the proper end of these, for this would belong also to those who are altogether without perception. Nor could the enjoyment and abundance of pleasures that nourish or delight the body be their end; otherwise the brutish life would necessarily take first place, and the life according to virtue would be incomplete. For I think this is the proper end of cattle and grazing animals, not of human beings who employ an immortal soul and rational judgment.

25Nor is the blessedness of a soul separated from its body the point at issue. We were not examining the life or end of one of the two parts from which a human being is composed, but of the being composed of both. For every human being who has obtained this present life is such a being, and there must be some end proper to his life. If the end belongs to the whole person, and this end cannot be found while they are still living this present life, for the reasons already stated many times, nor while the soul exists in separation—since such a human being no longer exists once the body has been dissolved or entirely scattered, even if the soul remains by itself—then it is absolutely necessary that the end of human beings appear in some other composition of the whole person and of the same living being. Since this follows by necessity, there must certainly be a resurrection of bodies that have died or been entirely dissolved, and the same human beings must be composed again. For the law of nature sets the end not simply, nor for just any human beings, but for those very persons who lived the previous life; and it is impossible for the same human beings to be composed again unless the same bodies are given back to the same souls. For the same body to receive back the same soul is impossible in any other way, but possible only through the resurrection. When this takes place, the end proper to human nature follows as well. As for the end of an intelligent and rational life, one would not be wrong to say that it is to abide undistractedly with those things to which the natural reason is chiefly and primarily fitted, and to rejoice unceasingly in the contemplation of the One who is and of what he has decreed—even if the majority of human beings, having clung too passionately and violently to the things of this world, miss this end. For the multitude of those who fall away from the end proper to them does not nullify the shared allotment, since the examination of these matters is particular, and honor or punishment is measured out to each person for a life lived well or badly.