Chapter XXXVI.--Christ's Refutation of the Sadducees, and Affirmation of Catholic Doctrine.
Let us now see whether (the Lord) has not imparted greater strength to our doctrine in breaking down the subtle cavil of the Sadducees. Their great object, I take it, was to do away altogether with the resurrection, for the Sadducees in fact did not admit any salvation either for the soul or the flesh; [7520] and therefore, taking the strongest case they could for impairing the credibility of the resurrection, they adapted an argument from it in support of the question which they started. Their specious inquiry concerned the flesh, whether or not it would be subject to marriage after the resurrection; and they assumed the case of a woman who had married seven brothers, so that it was a doubtful point to which of them she should be restored. [7521] Now, let the purport both of the question and the answer be kept steadily in view, and the discussion is settled at once. For since the Sadducees indeed denied the resurrection, whilst the Lord affirmed it; since, too, (in affirming it,) He reproached them as being both ignorant of the Scriptures--those, of course which had declared the resurrection--as well as incredulous of the power of God, though, of course, effectual to raise the dead, and lastly, since He immediately added the words, "Now, that the dead are raised," [7522] (speaking) without misgiving, and affirming the very thing which was being denied, even the resurrection of the dead before Him who is "the God of the living,"--(it clearly follows) that He affirmed this verity in the precise sense in which they were denying it; that it was, in fact, the resurrection of the two natures of man. Nor does it follow, (as they would have it,) that because Christ denied that men would marry, He therefore proved that they would not rise again. On the contrary, He called them "the children of the resurrection," [7523] in a certain sense having by the resurrection to undergo a birth; and after that they marry no more, but in their risen life are "equal unto the angels," [7524] inasmuch as they are not to marry, because they are not to die, but are destined to pass into the angelic state by putting on the raiment of incorruption, although with a change in the substance which is restored to life. Besides, no question could be raised whether we are to marry or die again or not, without involving in doubt the restoration most especially of that substance which has a particular relation both to death and marriage--that is, the flesh. Thus, then, you have the Lord affirming against the Jewish heretics what is now encountering the denial of the Christian Sadducees--the resurrection of the entire man.
[7520] Compare Tertullian's De Præscript. Hæret. c. xxxiii.
[7521] Matt. xxii. 23-32; Mark xii. 18-27; Luke xx. 27-38.
[7522] Luke xx. 37.
[7523] Ver. 36.
[7524] Ver. 36.
Chapter XXXVII.--Christ's Assertion About the Unprofitableness of the Flesh Explained Consistently with Our Doctrine.
He says, it is true, that "the flesh profiteth nothing;" [7525] but then, as in the former case, the meaning must be regulated by the subject which is spoken of. Now, because they thought His discourse was harsh and intolerable, supposing that He had really and literally enjoined on them to eat his flesh, He, with the view of ordering the state of salvation as a spiritual thing, set out with the principle, "It is the spirit that quickeneth;" and then added, "The flesh profiteth nothing,"--meaning, of course, to the giving of life. He also goes on to explain what He would have us to understand by spirit: "The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life." In a like sense He had previously said: "He that heareth my words, and believeth on Him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but shall pass from death unto life." [7526] Constituting, therefore, His word as the life-giving principle, because that word is spirit and life, He likewise called His flesh by the same appellation; because, too, the Word had become flesh, [7527] we ought therefore to desire Him in order that we may have life, and to devour Him with the ear, and to ruminate on Him with the understanding, and to digest Him by faith. Now, just before (the passage in hand), He had declared His flesh to be "the bread which cometh down from heaven," [7528] impressing on (His hearers) constantly under the figure of necessary food the memory of their forefathers, who had preferred the bread and flesh of Egypt to their divine calling. [7529] Then, turning His subject to their reflections, because He perceived that they were going to be scattered from Him, He says: "The flesh profiteth nothing." Now what is there to destroy the resurrection of the flesh? As if there might not reasonably enough be something which, although it "profiteth nothing" itself, might yet be capable of being profited by something else. The spirit "profiteth," for it imparts life. The flesh profiteth nothing, for it is subject to death. Therefore He has rather put the two propositions in a way which favours our belief: for by showing what "profits," and what "does not profit," He has likewise thrown light on the object which receives as well as the subject which gives the "profit." Thus, in the present instance, we have the Spirit giving life to the flesh which has been subdued by death; for "the hour," says He, "is coming, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live." [7530] Now, what is "the dead" but the flesh? and what is "the voice of God" but the Word? and what is the Word but the Spirit, [7531] who shall justly raise the flesh which He had once Himself become, and that too from death, which He Himself suffered, and from the grave, which He Himself once entered? Then again, when He says, "Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in which all that are in the graves shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and shall come forth; they that have done good, to the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation," [7532] --none will after such words be able to interpret the dead "that are in the graves" as any other than the bodies of the flesh, because the graves themselves are nothing but the resting-place of corpses: for it is incontestable that even those who partake of "the old man," that is to say, sinful men--in other words, those who are dead through their ignorance of God (whom our heretics, forsooth, foolishly insist on understanding by the word "graves" [7533] )--are plainly here spoken of as having to come from their graves for judgment. But how are graves to come forth from graves?
[7525] John vi. 63.
[7526] John v. 24.
[7527] John i. 14.
[7528] John vi. 51.
[7529] John vi. 31, 49, 58.
[7530] John v. 25.
[7531] The divine nature of the Son. See our Anti-Marcion, pp. 129, 247, note 7, Edin.
[7532] John v. 28, 29.
[7533] Compare c. xix. above.