To Florus 6.39

‘But someone will say: How do the dead rise? In what body do they come? Fool, what you sow is not made alive unless it first dies. Not all flesh is the same: human flesh is one kind, animals’ (Daniel 12:2) another; birds’ flesh one kind, fish another. There are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of heavenly bodies differs from the glory of earthly bodies. The sun has one glory, the moon another, and the stars another, for star differs from star in glory. So also is the resurrection of the dead.

‘It is sown in corruption, it will rise in incorruption; sown in dishonor, it will rise in glory; sown in weakness, it will rise in power; sown an animate body, it will rise a spiritual body. Thus it is also written: The first human, Adam, became a living soul; the last Adam a life-giving spirit. The first human is from earth, earthly; the second human from heaven, heavenly. As the earthly one is, so are earthly people; as the heavenly one is, so are heavenly people. As we have borne the earthly one’s image, let us also bear the heavenly one’s image’ (1 Corinthians 15:35–49).

He masters the difficulty through examples, saying that nothing is impossible when omnipotence promises the result. Just as he commends bodily resurrection through comparison with seeds, he explains differences among those rising through the variety of creatures. Yet throughout he speaks of the blessed’s resurrection. ‘It is sown in dishonor, it will rise in glory; sown in weakness, it will rise in power; sown an animate body, it will rise a spiritual body.’ This can certainly be fulfilled only in the saints. The ungodly are raised not into glory but into everlasting disgrace, as the prophet declares (compare Jeremiah 23:40; Daniel 12:2).

Here he appropriately distinguishes nature and grace, recalling the old testimony: ‘The first human, Adam, became a living soul’ (Genesis 2:7), then adding in his own words, ‘The last Adam a life-giving spirit.’ He shows that immortality’s gifts belong to the life-giving spirit, while a soul that merely lives belongs to a nature that will one day die. Living, then, he says, is not the same as life-giving. The life-giving one bestows immortality, which he assigns to Christ; the living one enjoys life but does not exclude mortality. He distinguished the two statements for this purpose: to show Adam was made living, but not immortal, while Christ became a spirit not merely living but bestowing resurrection—glorious for his own people, everlasting for everyone.