for indeed Thales, calling water alone the element, strives to demonstrate that the other three are generated from it, for he says its sediment becomes earth which is finer-grained (leptomeresteron), air, and what is thinner than air, fire. But Anaximenes, positing air alone, also attempts to show that the other elements are produced from air. Heraclitus likewise, and Hipparchus of Pontus, bringing forward fire, use the same demonstrations. Since therefore both these say that fire is generative of the other elements, and that one likewise air, and the other water, it is plainly evident that all the elements are mutually transformed and turned into one another, and that any one of them follows of necessity to be an element.
For whichever of the four elements you take away, this too will be found to be made from another. CHAPTER XXV. Against those who dare to assert that matter is co-eternal with God. For the opinion is not borne out which, from the things found by way of consequence concerning matter, pronounces that this too, springing from the intellectual, exists without matter. For we find that all matter subsists by certain qualities, of which if it be deprived, it can by no reasoning be apprehended. But each species of quality is divided by an underlying principle. But the principle is intellectual, and there is no corporeal inspection of it:
as, for example, suppose there is set before us in our contemplation some animal, or wood, or anything else which subsists by a material constitution, we weigh many things concerning that same subject by a discrimination of thought, each of which things, that are inspected together, are contained without any commingling, by reason and order. For the principle of color is one thing, and that of weight, of quantity, another. Likewise the principle of quality is one, and that of touch nonetheless another; for softness and the two-foot length and the rest of the things that have been mentioned agree with one another by no principle of likeness, nor with the body. For to each one a certain proper interpreting principle has been adjoined, communicating with none of those qualities which are discerned in its subject.
If therefore color is intelligible, and figure also intelligible, as too is quantity and the rest of such properties; but if you take away each of these from the subject, the whole principle of the body is likewise dissolved—it follows that, since we know the absence of these to be the cause of the body's dissolution, we ought to esteem their meeting and concurrence to perfect the material nature. For just as the body is not color, or figure, or distance, or weight, or the rest of the properties—to whatever it they belong—since, with respect to each of these, as we have said, they cannot be a body, but are shown to be something else besides body according to their own property:
so on the contrary, wherever the aforesaid things concur, they perfect a corporeal substance. And indeed, if the inspection of these is proved to be intellectual, and the divine nature is intellectual, there is nothing incongruous in that these occasions for corporeal generation can subsist from the incorporeal intelligible nature—since the intellectual nature indeed makes intelligible powers, and the concurrence of these into one another consequently brings forth material nature and generation. But these things have been discussed in passing. We, however, must again refer the whole argument to faith, by which we have learned that all things were established out of things non-existent, and again that they are to be changed into a certain other state, being taught by the venerable Scriptures, we by no means doubt.
CHAPTER XXVI. In what manner one may be led, even by those who are without, to believe the Scripture teaching concerning the resurrection. But perhaps someone, beholding bodies already dissolved, and weighing the divine reason according to the measure of his own powers, may declare the dissolution impossible, and pronounce that it cannot be that the things which are moved should stand, nay rather that the things which are now not moved should rise. But whoever he is, let him first receive the chief and greatest argument concerning the truth of the resurrection—that its preacher is proved most worthy of all faith, and that the faith of the things which are said retains its firmness from those things which have been foretold and fulfilled.
But since the authority of the divine Scripture has committed to us many and diverse discourses, I think it easy to explore, from those things which are now fulfilled, whether the things that have been said are false or true, and through them to inspect this dogma also of the resurrection. For if in other matters the discourses are shown to be false and far from the truth, this one too is not known to be free from falsehood. But if all the rest are true, with experience itself bearing witness, it follows that through these the preaching of the resurrection truly exists. Wherefore let us call to mind one or two of the things that have been foretold, and at the same time set forth their outcome, so far as we may be able to recognize whether our discourse answers to the truth.
Who then is ignorant how of old the Israelite people flourished, exalting themselves above almost all the powers of the world—what their kingdoms were in the city of Jerusalem, what their walls or towers, what too the great magnificence of the temple, so that it seemed even to the disciples of Christ a marvel, and they besought the Lord himself to give heed to it? And so they were affected with the amazement of admiration at the things they beheld, as the history of the holy Gospel declares, saying: What works, and what manner of buildings were these! But the Lord intimates to those who at the present were exceedingly admiring it the future desolation of the place and the destruction of that beauty, saying that nothing of the things which were seen would remain after a little while.
But also at the time of his passion, when many women followed him bewailing and lamenting that he had been condemned by an unjust sentence (for they could not yet understand the dispensation of the things that were being done), he gave them counsel, that they should cease from the things they wept over concerning him, because these were not worthy of tears, but should defer their lamentations and mournings to that time in which they would express true ones—when their city should be pressed by besiegers, and they should come into such straits of distress and calamity that they would then call blessed the one who had not been born at that time. Among which things also he foretold that crime by which they would devour their own children for hunger, saying in these words that in those days the barren woman who bore not would be happy.
Where then is that kingdom, where the temple, where the loftiness of walls and towers, where that power of the Israelites? Are they not indeed seen to be scattered, one here, another there, through nearly all lands, and with their subversion is the kingdom too destroyed? But it seems to me that the Lord foretold these and like things not for the sake of the things themselves (for what gain would the foreknowledge of the things that were to come bring to the hearers, things which, even if they had not known them beforehand, they would have learned by experience itself?), but that through these there might now consequently be held a faith concerning the greatest matters. For the testimony which stands in these works is proved to be in those others also a demonstration of the truth.
Just as, if some farmer, relating the power of seeds to an inexperienced man, should be by no means believed by him, it suffices him, for the proof of the truth, to demonstrate in one grain of seed the power of them all, so that concerning the rest his assertion may be firmly proved; for whoever has seen one grain—of wheat, say, or barley, or any of the others that happen to be of a medicinal measure—after it has been deposited in the bowels of the earth, rise up into an ear, can no longer doubt from this one concerning the rest: so to me, concerning the mystery of the resurrection, the very truth foretold and fulfilled by deeds seems a fitting testimony, or rather the experience of the resurrection itself already, which we have perceived, instructed not so much by words as by deeds.
For since the miracle concerning the resurrection was something great and beyond belief, the Lord, beginning from a lower sign of his power, gradually accustoms our faith to higher things by certain stages. For just as a certain mother, suitably nursing her little child, for a while pours milk into it through her breasts for its tender mouth, but when it begins to put forth teeth, offers it bread—not, as it is, hard or stiff, lest its solidity there roughen the softness of the gums, but, chewing it with her own teeth, softens it and prepares food suited to the strength of the little one; then, according to the advancement of its age, prepares stronger foods for one accustomed to softer ones:
so the Lord, nourishing human littleness as though imperfect infancy with such great miracles, and governing it through the very sickness which lay despaired of in its bed, forms in it the power of the resurrection—a thing which, for its consummation, was indeed pitiable, but not such that it should be believed impossible to come to pass. For commanding the fever which was strongly burning Simon's mother-in-law, he so on the instant removed so great a cause of the malady, that without delay she rose up and was able to render service to those present, she who was looked for forthwith to die. After this, adding a little of his power, he healed the ruler's son, who was languishing under manifest peril. For thus the evangelical history relates: For he was beginning to die, the father crying out and saying:
Come down, Lord, before the boy dies; and likewise working the miracle of the resurrection of him who was believed to be about to die, accomplishing it with a more excellent power, so that he neither came to the place, but, watching from afar, transmitted life to the boy by the power of his command; then, instructing us consequently, he leads us on to the higher things of his virtues. For coming of his own accord to the ruler's daughter, he afforded occasions of the journey, that both the healing of her who labored under an issue of blood might be made known, and that by so great a delay of time death might prevail over the sick girl—but now, the soul being separated from the body, and amid the troubled and mournful cries of those who were extolling the calamity with lamentations, he, as though from sleep, by an imperative word raised the girl to life.
By a certain way and consequence raising human frailty toward greater things, and again transcending these miracles too with his accustomed power by a loftier might, he makes a way for men whereby they might admit the faith of the resurrection. Holy Scripture records that there is a certain city named Nain in Judea. In it was the only son of a certain widow, a boy—not such a boy as would be reckoned among little ones, but one who had now from boyhood already advanced into youth. Whence the heavenly word calls him a young man, intimating much in few words. The very account is a great lamentation: There was, it says, a widow, the mother of the deceased. You perceive the weight of the calamity, how briefly it set forth the suffering. For what is it that is said?
That there was no longer any hope by which she could be restored with children, and assume so great a solace for her bereavement. For she was a widow, and had no other whom she might behold in place of the deceased. For her childbearing had been single. But how great this evil is, all easily understand who know the laws of nature. Him alone she had known in her travails, him alone she had suckled at her breasts, he alone made her feast bright; and of all her grief he alone was the cause of gladness, when he played or did anything, when he was being instructed or adorned, when he was joined with his coevals in processions, in wrestling-schools, in assemblies—whatever was sweet and precious before a mother's eyes, he, the only one, the sole, presented.
And now the time of marriage had arrived; he seemed the stock of the family, the little branch of the succession, the staff of old age and the increase of her years. There was yet another occasion for lamentation. For he who recounted the young man at the same time indicated the flower that had withered—whose face was still clothed with down, and the comeliness of whose cheeks shone with a pleasing radiance. What then did the mother bear over his death; with how great a fire were her bowels burned? How copious and most bitter the tears she shed over him? Wasting away in a manner and embracing his corpse, that his burial might not be hastened, and desiring to be satisfied with so great a calamity, she longed to send forth long voices in weeping at length, so that she moved all who heard to mourning.
Nor did the holy account pass this over. Seeing her, it says, the Lord was moved with compassion, and approaching he touched the bier; and those who bore it stood still; and he said to the dead man: Young man, I say to you, Arise—and forthwith he restored him living to his mother, now not after a small delay and distance, although not yet buried, yet near to burial; life from the Lord, resurrection of the dead—indeed a greater miracle, but altogether an equal command. But still more magnificently are the signs of his powers brought forth, that one may more and more approach that matter wherein the resurrection of the dead seems to be doubted.
One of the intimates of Christ, named Lazarus, falls sick, whom the Lord, although a friend, on that account delayed to visit, and kept far from the sick man, so that, life being absent, death might find entry and through the infirmity might accomplish what was its own. He indicates to the disciples what had befallen Lazarus in Galilee, and that he must hasten thither to raise him from the dead. But they, on account of the savagery of the Jews, shunned the places mentioned, deeming it deadly and perilous to go again into Judea, and to be among murderers and the impious; and therefore, lingering and deferring, they prolonged the time, lest they should return thither.
The Lord's command prevailed, and as he set out the disciples followed, that in Bethany they might behold the first-fruits, as it were, of the universal resurrection. It was now the fourth day since the burial, and all things seemed to have been paid over to the tomb; it was established that the body, deposited in the monument, and, as was consequent, now distended with the dread of corruption, was being dissolved by the destruction of decay. For the putrid matter flowed down into the earth by very necessity, a thing assuredly to be fled, and, nature compelling, that which had been dissolved exhaled a most foul stench. But this happened so that the work of the general resurrection, which is too little believed by the faithless, might be proved by the demonstration of a manifest miracle.
For it is not someone lifted up out of sickness, nor one placed in extremity retained in life, nor a little girl lately dead raised up, nor a youth near the monument deserting his own bier, but a man of the first rank, putrefying and flowing apart, so that it was not even tolerable to his sisters that the Lord should draw near the monument, on account of the implanted offensiveness of the corpse now dissolved: yet by one voice he was made alive, and gives faith to the preacher, which confirms the hope of the resurrection. This is what we believe in common concerning all, which we have learned in particular by experience itself.
For just as, at the universal resurrection, the Apostle says that the Lord himself descends from heaven with a command and with the voice of an archangel and with the trumpet of God, to raise the dead to incorruptibility, so now too, dispelling death like a kind of sleep by the command of the dominical voice, he who was in the monument, and shutting far away from himself the corruption that had come from death, leaps forth whole and perfect from the sepulcher, not at all hindered from walking even by the very bands with which he had been bound. Do you esteem these things small for making faith that we believe the resurrection of the dead is to be? Or do you seek that this opinion be confirmed to you from other things also? It seems to me not in vain that the Lord said to those who were of Capernaum, as though in their person:
Surely you will say to me this parable: 'Physician, heal yourself.' For it was fitting that the miracle of resurrection which He had wrought in the bodies of others He should also approve, manifested in His very self, according to that whereby He deigned to be man, confirming His preaching by His own death as well, in many trustworthy ways. You have seen a girl but lately ceasing to live, a young man too drawing near the tomb, and likewise Lazarus all but dissolved; all alike were summoned back to life by a single spoken command. You seek also those who have come to death through blood and wounds, lest perhaps in this some failing be found, whereby the grace of the Giver of life should not appear in all things.
Behold the hands of the Lord pierced through with nails; behold the side bored through with the spear-point; pass your fingers over the openings of the nails; put your hand into the wound that was made by the lance. You may perhaps reckon how far the sharpness of the point could penetrate to the inner parts from the breadth of its scar; you may, if you please, measure the entry, for the very wound, made by the thrust of a man's hand, shows clearly how deep it descended. If therefore, thus afflicted, He rose from the dead, opportunely do we bring forth that saying of the Apostle: 'How do some say among you that there is no resurrection of the dead?'
Since therefore every pronouncement of the Lord is shown to be true by the very testimony of the facts—for this we have learned not by word only, but by the very deed we glory to have received a manifest hope of His promise through those who have already come to life from the resurrection—what occasion will any longer remain to the unbelieving? Shall we not, renouncing those who through philosophy and vain deceit strive to despise the simplicity of faith, hold fast in our littleness the purest confession of our hope, saying after the manner of the prophet of that same grace, when he says to the Lord: 'Thou shalt take away their spirit, and they shall fail, and shall return to their dust';
'send forth Thy Spirit, and they shall be created, and Thou shalt renew the face of the earth'—when also he affirms that the Lord shall rejoice in His works, 'when sinners shall fail from the earth.' For how shall anyone any longer be called a sinner, when sins can no longer exist? CHAPTER XXVII. That the resurrection of the dead is not contrary to what is fitting. But there are certain men who, from the deficiency of human reasonings, judging the divine power by our own measure, affirm that what they themselves cannot grasp is not possible even to God.
For they point out to us the remains of the ancient dead utterly consumed, both those which fire has reduced to ashes, and beyond this they are shown to bring forward to this argument the beasts that feed on flesh, and the fish that draws into its own body the flesh of a man perishing in shipwreck, and this in turn becomes a man's food and through digestion is converted into the bulk of the one who eats; and many other things exceedingly absurd and wholly unworthy of the power and magnificence of the great God they allege for the overthrow of the true doctrine—as though God could not, by these same things, restore again from their consumption that which is proper to man.
But let us in brief cut short the lengthy excursions of their most vain reasoning, confessing that the dissolutions of the body take place into those things of which it consists; and that not only does earth, according to the authority of the divine word, return to earth, but that air also and moisture are restored each to its own most like portion, and that each of the things that are in us migrates back to its own origin.
And although the human body be given as food to birds that feed on flesh, and to beasts that feed on flesh, and be mingled by these chances; although it come under the teeth of fishes, and through fire be turned into vapours and dust—wheresoever, according to the proposed reasoning, one carry the man about, it must needs be that he is within this world, which the voice divinely inspired teaches to be held in the hand of God, when it says that 'in His hand are all the ends of the earth.' But if you cannot be ignorant of what you hold in your own palm, do you suppose that the knowledge of God, which is superior to your power, fails to search out, of those things which are held by the divine power and hand, even that which is certain to it? CHAPTER XXVIII.
That it is possible, when human bodies have been dissolved into all the elements, that out of what is common to each its own be again restored and made whole. But perhaps, looking to the elements of the whole world, you think it difficult that our condition, drawn back into the kindred element of air—the warm too and the moist, and the earthy of our substance, likewise mingled with their own proper parts—can again be restored from the common store to each that which is its own. Accordingly, you do not consider, even by human examples, that this too cannot transcend the bounds of the divine power.
You have doubtless somewhere, in the dwelling-places of men, seen a common flock pasturing together in common; yet when again the flock is divided among its proper owners, either the habit of the places, or the marks set upon the cattle, restores to each its own. Pondering some such thing concerning yourself, you will by no means stray from what is fitting. In short, since by a natural bond and affection the soul is held about the body which it inhabited, there is in it a certain latent commixture, a certain affection and acquaintance which they now have toward one another, as though by certain marks set by nature, by which their fellowship, remaining unconfused, is distinguished by the properties of each.
When therefore the soul shall have drawn back again to itself its kindred and proper thing, what labour, I pray—nature in particular not forbidding—is it for the divine power that its own should again come together into itself, and by a certain ineffable concurrence of nature each part strive toward its own? But that even after the dissolution certain marks of our conformation remain to the souls, is shown by that discourse which took place among those below, when, the bodies having already been given over to burial, there clung to the souls a certain bodily recognition, by which both Lazarus could be known and the rich man could not be unrecognized.
Nothing therefore is beyond reason, if it be believed that bodies, in rising again, return with what is proper to each out of the common store; and this he most especially observes who has taken pains to investigate nature more diligently. For not in all respects do the things that are ours flow and change; otherwise they would be utterly incomprehensible, having no stability by nature. But when the matter is more carefully examined, it appears that of the things which are in us, something stands, while something else flows away by change. For the body is changed through increases and decreases, putting on, as it were, certain garments through certain successive ages;
yet through all these changes the form stands unchangeably, not deserting in itself the marks which were once impressed upon it by nature, by which it retains its recognition through all the body's changes. But there must be withdrawn from this reasoning that alteration which is joined to the form on some occasion; for the form takes on, as it were, an alien person of foulness, which it bears through the troubles of sickness; and when this is by some means removed—as in Naaman the Syrian, or in those whom the Gospels record—the form that lay hidden under the affliction returns again into its own recognition by recovery of health.
Therefore, according to that whereby it is like to God, the soul flows and is changed by no alteration, but remains fixed, ever existing as the selfsame; and according to this our re-formation maintains the divine likeness. And since the differences of the form are wrought by the qualities of the temperaments which change, while the temperament is nothing other than the disposition of the elements—and let us call elements those things which are subject to the whole creation, of which we profess that the human body also subsists—necessarily the form, as though stamped by a seal, remains in the soul, and it in no way is ignorant of the very shape which it received by impression.
Whence at the time of the resurrection it receives back again into itself those things which were suited to the form itself; and those things are suited which from the beginning are proved to have been implanted in the form. Therefore nothing appears beyond reason, that out of the common store there should again return to each that which is its own. It is said also of quicksilver—which the common people call living silver—that if it be poured out over sloping and dusty places, it is divided over the ground into the tiniest globules, and these cannot mingle though running together; yet if anyone again gather into one that which was scattered in many ways, the spring joins itself to its own kind, entangled by no interpositions to hinder its commixture. Some such thing I judge ought to be observed also concerning the composition of man.
For as soon as the faculty has been granted by God, the like parts will of their own accord mingle with their proper parts, without any difficulty to Him who deigns to re-form nature. For even in those things which spring up from the earth we behold no labour to nature, when it converts wheat, or millet, or any other seed of grain or pulse, into stalk, ears, and spikes, without difficulty; for the suitable nourishment of its own accord passes from the common store to the property of each seed.
If therefore moisture is set forth in common to all the seeds in the earth, and each is nourished by it, and draws to its own growth that which is fitting to it, what new thing is it if in our restoration this too take place, when from each thing that rises again that which is its own is drawn, as happens in seeds? Therefore from all things it is possible to learn that the preaching of the resurrection is nothing beyond those things which are known to us by experience itself. And indeed, of those things which are ours, I had almost passed over in silence that which is best known—I mean the very beginning of our formation. For who is ignorant of the marvel of nature, and what the maternal womb receives, and what it brings to perfection?
You see how simple in a manner and how slight is that which is deposited in the inward parts for the occasion of the constituting of our body; but the variety of the perfected substance—who could unfold it in speech? And who, recognizing such a work to be of common nature, would not deem possible that which is wrought? But if that small thing, which is reckoned almost as nothing, is known to be the beginning of so great a matter—and I call it great not only with regard to the formation of the body, but I declare that the soul itself first is altogether worthy of admiration, and the things which are discerned concerning the mind itself. CHAPTER XXIX.