The Ascension and the Spiritual Body
Augustine is expounding the article of the creed on Christ's ascension into heaven and answering objections about an earthly body being in heaven.
We believe that he ascended into heaven, the place of blessedness that he also promised to us when he said, “They will be like the angels in heaven” (Matthew 22:30), in that city which is the mother of us all, the eternal Jerusalem in heaven (Galatians 4:26). Yet some people are usually offended—either impious Gentiles or heretics—that we believe an earthly body was taken up into heaven. The Gentiles, for the most part, try to deal with us by the arguments of the philosophers, saying that nothing earthly can exist in heaven. They do not know our Scriptures, and they do not know how it was said, “A natural body is sown; a spiritual body rises” (1 Corinthians 15:44). It was not said as if the body is turned into spirit and becomes spirit, because even now our body, which is called natural, has not been turned into soul and become soul. Rather, a spiritual body is understood as one so subjected to the spirit that it is suited to a heavenly dwelling, with all fragility and earthly stain changed and converted into heavenly purity and stability. This is the change about which the apostle also says, “We will all rise, but we will not all be changed” (1 Corinthians 15:51). He teaches that this change is not for the worse but for the better when he says, “And we will be changed” (1 Corinthians 15:52). But where and how the Lord’s body is in heaven is a most curious and superfluous question to ask; we must simply believe that it is in heaven. It is not for our fragility to examine the secrets of the heavens, but it is for our faith to think sublime and honorable things about the dignity of the Lord’s body.
Latin
Credimus in caelum ascendisse, quem beatitudinis locum etiam nobis promisit, dicens: erunt sicut angeli in caelis, in illa ciuitate, quae est mater omnium nostrum Hierusalem aeterna in caelis. solet autem quosdam offendere uel inpios gentiles uel haereticos, quod credamus adsumptum terrenum corpus in caelum. sed gentiles plerumque philosophorum argumentis nobiscum agere student, ut dicant terrenum aliquid in caelo esse non posse. nostras enim scripturas non nouerunt nec sciunt quomodo dictum sit: seminatur corpus animale, surgit corpus spiritale. non enim ita dictum est, quasi corpus uertatur in spiritum et spiritus fiat, quia et nunc corpus nostrum, quod animale dicitur, non in animam uersum est et anima factum; sed spiritale corpus intellegitur, quod ita spiritui subditum est, ut caelesti habitationi conueniat, omni fragilitate ac labe terrena in caelestem puritatem et stabilitatem mutata atque conuersa. haec est inmutatio, de qua item dicit apostolus: omnes resurgemus, sed non omnes inmutabimur. quam inmutationem non in deterius, sed in melius fieri docet idem, cum dicit: et nos inmutabimur. sed ubi et quomodo sit in caelo corpus dominicum, curiosissimum et superuacaneum est quaerere; tantummodo in caelo esse credendum est. non enim est fragilitatis nostrae caelorum secreta discutere, sed est nostrae fidei de dominici corporis dignitate sublimia et honesta sentire.