BOOK THIRTEENTH.

Argument

IN THIS BOOK IT IS TAUGHT THAT DEATH IS PENAL, AND HAD ITS
ORIGIN IN ADAM’S SIN.

1. Of the fall of the first man, through which mortality has been contracted.

Having disposed of the very difficult questions concerning
the origin of our world and the beginning of
the human race, the natural order requires that we now
discuss the fall of the first man (we may say of the first
men), and of the origin and propagation of human death.
For God had not made man like the angels, in such a
condition that, even though they had sinned, they could none
the more die. He had so made them, that if they discharged
the obligations of obedience, an angelic immortality and a
blessed eternity might ensue, without the intervention of
death; but if they disobeyed, death should be visited on
them with just sentence—which, too, has been spoken to in
the preceding book.

2. Of that death which can affect an immortal soul, and of that to which
the body is subject.

But I see I must speak a little more carefully of the
nature of death. For although the human soul is truly
affirmed to be immortal, yet it also has a certain death of
its own. For it is therefore called immortal, because, in a
sense, it does not cease to live and to feel; while the body is
called mortal, because it can be forsaken of all life, and cannot
by itself live at all. The death, then, of the soul takes place
when God forsakes it, as the death of the body when the
soul forsakes it. Therefore the death of both—that is, of the
whole man—occurs when the soul, forsaken by God, forsakes
the body. For, in this case, neither is God the life of the
soul, nor the soul the life of the body. And this death of
the whole man is followed by that which, on the authority[Pg 522]
of the divine oracles, we call the second death. This the
Saviour referred to when He said, “Fear Him which is able
to destroy both soul and body in hell.”[573] And since this
does not happen before the soul is so joined to its body that
they cannot be separated at all, it may be matter of wonder
how the body can be said to be killed by that death in which
it is not forsaken by the soul, but, being animated and rendered
sensitive by it, is tormented. For in that penal and
everlasting punishment, of which in its own place we are to
speak more at large, the soul is justly said to die, because it
does not live in connection with God; but how can we say
that the body is dead, seeing that it lives by the soul? For
it could not otherwise feel the bodily torments which are to
follow the resurrection. Is it because life of every kind is
good, and pain an evil, that we decline to say that that body
lives, in which the soul is the cause, not of life, but of pain?
The soul, then, lives by God when it lives well, for it cannot
live well unless by God working in it what is good; and the
body lives by the soul when the soul lives in the body,
whether itself be living by God or no. For the wicked man’s
life in the body is a life not of the soul, but of the body,
which even dead souls—that is, souls forsaken of God—can
confer upon bodies, how little soever of their own proper life,
by which they are immortal, they retain. But in the last
damnation, though man does not cease to feel, yet because
this feeling of his is neither sweet with pleasure nor wholesome
with repose, but painfully penal, it is not without reason
called death rather than life. And it is called the second
death because it follows the first, which sunders the two
cohering essences, whether these be God and the soul, or
the soul and the body. Of the first and bodily death, then,
we may say that to the good it is good, and evil to the evil.
But, doubtless, the second, as it happens to none of the good,
so it can be good for none.

3. Whether death, which by the sin of our first parents has passed upon all
men, is the punishment of sin, even to the good.

But a question not to be shirked arises: Whether in very
truth death, which separates soul and body, is good to the[Pg 523]
good?[574] For if it be, how has it come to pass that such a
thing should be the punishment of sin? For the first men
would not have suffered death had they not sinned. How,
then, can that be good to the good, which could not have
happened except to the evil? Then, again, if it could only
happen to the evil, to the good it ought not to be good, but
non-existent. For why should there be any punishment where
there is nothing to punish? Wherefore we must say that the
first men were indeed so created, that if they had not sinned,
they would not have experienced any kind of death; but that,
having become sinners, they were so punished with death, that
whatsoever sprang from their stock should also be punished
with the same death. For nothing else could be born of them
than that which they themselves had been. Their nature was
deteriorated in proportion to the greatness of the condemnation
of their sin, so that what existed as punishment in those
who first sinned, became a natural consequence in their children.
For man is not produced by man, as he was from the
dust. For dust was the material out of which man was
made: man is the parent by whom man is begotten. Wherefore
earth and flesh are not the same thing, though flesh be
made of earth. But as man the parent is, such is man the
offspring. In the first man, therefore, there existed the whole
human nature, which was to be transmitted by the woman
to posterity, when that conjugal union received the divine
sentence of its own condemnation; and what man was made,
not when created, but when he sinned and was punished, this
he propagated, so far as the origin of sin and death are concerned.
For neither by sin nor its punishment was he himself
reduced to that infantine and helpless infirmity of body
and mind which we see in children. For God ordained that
infants should begin the world as the young of beasts begin
it, since their parents had fallen to the level of the beasts in
the fashion of their life and of their death; as it is written,
“Man when he was in honour understood not; he became
like the beasts that have no understanding.”[575] Nay more,[Pg 524]
infants, we see, are even feebler in the use and movement of
their limbs, and more infirm to choose and refuse, than the
most tender offspring of other animals; as if the force that
dwells in human nature were destined to surpass all other
living things so much the more eminently, as its energy has
been longer restrained, and the time of its exercise delayed,
just as an arrow flies the higher the further back it has been
drawn. To this infantine imbecility[576] the first man did not
fall by his lawless presumption and just sentence; but human
nature was in his person vitiated and altered to such an
extent, that he suffered in his members the warring of disobedient
lust, and became subject to the necessity of dying.
And what he himself had become by sin and punishment,
such he generated those whom he begot; that is to say, subject
to sin and death. And if infants are delivered from this
bondage of sin by the Redeemer’s grace, they can suffer only
this death which separates soul and body; but being redeemed
from the obligation of sin, they do not pass to that second
endless and penal death.

4. Why death, the punishment of sin, is not withheld from those who by the
grace of regeneration are absolved from sin.

If, moreover, any one is solicitous about this point, how, if
death be the very punishment of sin, they whose guilt is cancelled
by grace do yet suffer death, this difficulty has already
been handled and solved in our other work which we have
written on the baptism of infants.[577] There it was said that the
parting of soul and body was left, though its connection with
sin was removed, for this reason, that if the immortality of
the body followed immediately upon the sacrament of regeneration,
faith itself would be thereby enervated. For faith is
then only faith when it waits in hope for what is not yet seen
in substance. And by the vigour and conflict of faith, at least
in times past, was the fear of death overcome. Specially was
this conspicuous in the holy martyrs, who could have had no
victory, no glory, to whom there could not even have been any
conflict, if, after the laver of regeneration, saints could not suffer[Pg 525]
bodily death. Who would not, then, in company with the
infants presented for baptism, run to the grace of Christ, that
so he might not be dismissed from the body? And thus faith
would not be tested with an unseen reward; and so would
not even be faith, seeking and receiving an immediate recompense
of its works. But now, by the greater and more admirable
grace of the Saviour, the punishment of sin is turned
to the service of righteousness. For then it was proclaimed
to man, “If thou sinnest, thou shalt die;” now it is said to
the martyr, “Die, that thou sin not.” Then it was said, “If
ye transgress the commandments, ye shall die;” now it is
said, “If ye decline death, ye transgress the commandment.”
That which was formerly set as an object of terror, that men
might not sin, is now to be undergone if we would not sin.
Thus, by the unutterable mercy of God, even the very punishment
of wickedness has become the armour of virtue, and the
penalty of the sinner becomes the reward of the righteous.
For then death was incurred by sinning, now righteousness is
fulfilled by dying. In the case of the holy martyrs it is so;
for to them the persecutor proposes the alternative, apostasy
or death. For the righteous prefer by believing to suffer what
the first transgressors suffered by not believing. For unless
they had sinned, they would not have died; but the martyrs
sin if they do not die. The one died because they sinned, the
others do not sin because they die. By the guilt of the first,
punishment was incurred; by the punishment of the second,
guilt is prevented. Not that death, which was before an evil,
has become something good, but only that God has granted to
faith this grace, that death, which is the admitted opposite to
life, should become the instrument by which life is reached.

5. As the wicked make an ill use of the law, which is good, so the good make
a good use of death, which is an ill.

The apostle, wishing to show how hurtful a thing sin is,
when grace does not aid us, has not hesitated to say that the
strength of sin is that very law by which sin is prohibited.
“The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law.”[578]
Most certainly true; for prohibition increases the desire of
illicit action, if righteousness is not so loved that the desire of[Pg 526]
sin is conquered by that love. But unless divine grace aid
us, we cannot love nor delight in true righteousness. But lest
the law should be thought to be an evil, since it is called the
strength of sin, the apostle, when treating a similar question in
another place, says, “The law indeed is holy, and the commandment
holy, and just, and good. Was then that which is holy
made death unto me? God forbid. But sin, that it might appear
sin, working death in me by that which is good; that sin
by the commandment might become exceeding sinful.”[579] Exceeding,
he says, because the transgression is more heinous when
through the increasing lust of sin the law itself also is despised.
Why have we thought it worth while to mention this? For
this reason, because, as the law is not an evil when it increases
the lust of those who sin, so neither is death a good thing
when it increases the glory of those who suffer it, since either
the former is abandoned wickedly, and makes transgressors, or
the latter is embraced for the truth’s sake, and makes martyrs.
And thus the law is indeed good, because it is prohibition of
sin, and death is evil because it is the wages of sin; but as
wicked men make an evil use not only of evil, but also of good
things, so the righteous make a good use not only of good, but
also of evil things. Whence it comes to pass that the wicked
make an ill use of the law, though the law is good; and that
the good die well, though death is an evil.

6. Of the evil of death in general, considered as the separation of soul
and body.

Wherefore, as regards bodily death, that is, the separation
of the soul from the body, it is good unto none while it is
being endured by those whom we say are in the article of
death. For the very violence with which body and soul are
wrenched asunder, which in the living had been conjoined
and closely intertwined, brings with it a harsh experience,
jarring horridly on nature so long as it continues, till there
comes a total loss of sensation, which arose from the very
interpenetration of spirit and flesh. And all this anguish is
sometimes forestalled by one stroke of the body or sudden
flitting of the soul, the swiftness of which prevents it from
being felt. But whatever that may be in the dying which[Pg 527]
with violently painful sensation robs of all sensation, yet, when
it is piously and faithfully borne, it increases the merit of
patience, but does not make the name of punishment inapplicable.
Death, proceeding by ordinary generation from the
first man, is the punishment of all who are born of him, yet,
if it be endured for righteousness’ sake, it becomes the glory
of those who are born again; and though death be the award
of sin, it sometimes secures that nothing be awarded to sin.

7. Of the death which the unbaptized[580] suffer for the confession of Christ.

For whatever unbaptized persons die confessing Christ, this
confession is of the same efficacy for the remission of sins as
if they were washed in the sacred font of baptism. For He
who said, “Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit,
he cannot enter into the kingdom of God,”[581] made also an exception
in their favour, in that other sentence where He no
less absolutely said, “Whosoever shall confess me before men,
him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven;”[582]
and in another place, “Whosoever will lose his life for my
sake, shall find it.”[583] And this explains the verse, “Precious
in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints.”[584] For
what is more precious than a death by which a man’s sins are
all forgiven, and his merits increased an hundredfold? For
those who have been baptized when they could no longer
escape death, and have departed this life with all their sins
blotted out, have not equal merit with those who did not
defer death, though it was in their power to do so, but preferred
to end their life by confessing Christ, rather than by
denying Him to secure an opportunity of baptism. And even
had they denied Him under pressure of the fear of death, this
too would have been forgiven them in that baptism, in which
was remitted even the enormous wickedness of those who had
slain Christ. But how abundant in these men must have
been the grace of the Spirit, who breathes where He listeth,
seeing that they so dearly loved Christ as to be unable to deny
Him even in so sore an emergency, and with so sure a hope
of pardon! Precious, therefore, is the death of the saints, to[Pg 528]
whom the grace of Christ has been applied with such gracious
effects, that they do not hesitate to meet death themselves, if
so be they might meet Him. And precious is it, also, because
it has proved that what was originally ordained for the punishment
of the sinner, has been used for the production of a richer
harvest of righteousness. But not on this account should we
look upon death as a good thing, for it is diverted to such
useful purposes, not by any virtue of its own, but by the
divine interference. Death was originally proposed as an
object of dread, that sin might not be committed; now it must
be undergone that sin may not be committed, or, if committed,
be remitted, and the award of righteousness bestowed on him
whose victory has earned it.

8. That the saints, by suffering the first death for the truth’s sake, are
freed from the second.

For if we look at the matter a little more carefully, we shall
see that even when a man dies faithfully and laudably for the
truth’s sake, it is still death he is avoiding. For he submits
to some part of death, for the very purpose of avoiding the
whole, and the second and eternal death over and above. He
submits to the separation of soul and body, lest the soul be
separated both from God and from the body, and so the whole
first death be completed, and the second death receive him
everlastingly. Wherefore death is indeed, as I said, good to
none while it is being actually suffered, and while it is subduing
the dying to its power; but it is meritoriously endured
for the sake of retaining or winning what is good. And regarding
what happens after death, it is no absurdity to say
that death is good to the good, and evil to the evil. For the
disembodied spirits of the just are at rest; but those of the
wicked suffer punishment till their bodies rise again,—those of
the just to life everlasting, and of the others to death eternal,
which is called the second death.

9. Whether we should say that the moment of death, in which sensation ceases,
occurs in the experience of the dying or in that of the dead.

The point of time in which the souls of the good and evil
are separated from the body, are we to say it is after death, or
in death rather? If it is after death, then it is not death
which is good or evil, since death is done with and past, but[Pg 529]
it is the life which the soul has now entered on. Death was
an evil when it was present, that is to say, when it was being
suffered by the dying; for to them it brought with it a severe
and grievous experience, which the good make a good use of.
But when death is past, how can that which no longer is be
either good or evil? Still further, if we examine the matter
more closely, we shall see that even that sore and grievous
pain which the dying experience is not death itself. For so
long as they have any sensation, they are certainly still alive;
and, if still alive, must rather be said to be in a state previous
to death than in death. For when death actually comes, it
robs us of all bodily sensation, which, while death is only approaching,
is painful. And thus it is difficult to explain how
we speak of those who are not yet dead, but are agonized in
their last and mortal extremity, as being in the article of
death. Yet what else can we call them than dying persons?
for when death which was imminent shall have actually come,
we can no longer call them dying but dead. No one, therefore,
is dying unless living; since even he who is in the last
extremity of life, and, as we say, giving up the ghost, yet lives.
The same person is therefore at once dying and living, but
drawing near to death, departing from life; yet in life, because
his spirit yet abides in the body; not yet in death, because
not yet has his spirit forsaken the body. But if, when it has
forsaken it, the man is not even then in death, but after death,
who shall say when he is in death? On the one hand, no one
can be called dying, if a man cannot be dying and living at
the same time; and as long as the soul is in the body, we
cannot deny that he is living. On the other hand, if the man
who is approaching death be rather called dying, I know not
who is living.

10. Of the life of mortals, which is rather to be called death than life.

For no sooner do we begin to live in this dying body, than
we begin to move ceaselessly towards death.[585] For in the[Pg 530]
whole course of this life (if life we must call it) its mutability
tends towards death. Certainly there is no one who is not
nearer it this year than last year, and to-morrow than to-day,
and to-day than yesterday, and a short while hence than now,
and now than a short while ago. For whatever time we live
is deducted from our whole term of life, and that which
remains is daily becoming less and less; so that our whole
life is nothing but a race towards death, in which no one is
allowed to stand still for a little space, or to go somewhat
more slowly, but all are driven forwards with an impartial
movement, and with equal rapidity. For he whose life is short
spends a day no more swiftly than he whose life is longer.
But while the equal moments are impartially snatched from
both, the one has a nearer and the other a more remote goal
to reach with this their equal speed. It is one thing to make
a longer journey, and another to walk more slowly. He,
therefore, who spends longer time on his way to death does
not proceed at a more leisurely pace, but goes over more
ground. Further, if every man begins to die, that is, is in
death, as soon as death has begun to show itself in him (by
taking away life, to wit; for when life is all taken away, the
man will be then not in death, but after death), then he begins
to die so soon as he begins to live. For what else is going
on in all his days, hours, and moments, until this slow-working
death is fully consummated? And then comes the time
after death, instead of that in which life was being withdrawn,
and which we called being in death. Man, then, is never in
life from the moment he dwells in this dying rather than
living body,—if, at least, he cannot be in life and death at
once. Or rather, shall we say, he is in both?—in life,
namely, which he lives till all is consumed; but in death
also, which he dies as his life is consumed? For if he is not
in life, what is it which is consumed till all be gone? And
if he is not in death, what is this consumption itself? For
when the whole of life has been consumed, the expression
“after death” would be meaningless, had that consumption
not been death. And if, when it has all been consumed, a
man is not in death but after death, when is he in death,
unless when life is being consumed away?

[Pg 531]

11. Whether one can both be living and dead at the same time.

But if it is absurd to say that a man is in death before he
reaches death (for to what is his course running as he passes
through life, if already he is in death?), and if it outrage
common usage to speak of a man being at once alive and
dead, as much as it does so, to speak of him as at once asleep
and awake, it remains to be asked when a man is dying?
For, before death comes, he is not dying but living; and
when death has come, he is not dying but dead. The one is
before, the other after death. When, then, is he in death so
that we can say he is dying? For as there are three times,
before death, in death, after death, so there are three states
corresponding, living, dying, dead. And it is very hard to
define when a man is in death or dying, when he is neither
living, which is before death, nor dead, which is after death,
but dying, which is in death. For so long as the soul is in
the body, especially if consciousness remain, the man certainly
lives; for body and soul constitute the man. And thus,
before death, he cannot be said to be in death; but when,
on the other hand, the soul has departed, and all bodily
sensation is extinct, death is past, and the man is dead.
Between these two states the dying condition finds no place;
for if a man yet lives, death has not arrived; if he has ceased
to live, death is past. Never, then, is he dying, that is, comprehended
in the state of death. So also in the passing of
time,—you try to lay your finger on the present, and cannot
find it, because the present occupies no space, but is only
the transition of time from the future to the past. Must we
then conclude that there is thus no death of the body at all?
For if there is, where is it, since it is in no one, and no one
can be in it? Since, indeed, if there is yet life, death is not
yet; for this state is before death, not in death: and if life
has already ceased, death is not present; for this state is
after death, not in death. On the other hand, if there is
no death before or after, what do we mean when we say
“after death,” or “before death?” This is a foolish way
of speaking if there is no death. And would that we had
lived so well in Paradise that in very truth there were now
no death! But not only does it now exist, but so grievous[Pg 532]
a thing is it, that no skill is sufficient either to explain or to
escape it.

Let us, then, speak in the customary way,—no man ought
to speak otherwise,—and let us call the time before death
come, “before death;” as it is written, “Praise no man before
his death.”[586] And when it has happened, let us say that
“after death” this or that took place. And of the present
time let us speak as best we can, as when we say, “He,
when dying, made his will, and left this or that to such and
such persons,”—though, of course, he could not do so unless
he were living, and did this rather before death than in death.
And let us use the same phraseology as Scripture uses; for it
makes no scruple of saying that the dead are not after but in
death. So that verse, “For in death there is no remembrance
of thee.”[587] For until the resurrection men are justly said to
be in death; as every one is said to be in sleep till he
awakes. However, though we can say of persons in sleep
that they are sleeping, we cannot speak in this way of the
dead, and say they are dying. For, so far as regards the
death of the body, of which we are now speaking, one cannot
say that those who are already separated from their bodies
continue dying. But this, you see, is just what I was saying,—that
no words can explain how either the dying are said
to live, or how the dead are said, even after death, to be in
death. For how can they be after death if they be in death,
especially when we do not even call them dying, as we call
those in sleep, sleeping; and those in languor, languishing;
and those in grief, grieving; and those in life, living? And
yet the dead, until they rise again, are said to be in death,
but cannot be called dying.

And therefore I think it has not unsuitably nor inappropriately
come to pass, though not by the intention of man,
yet perhaps with divine purpose, that this Latin word
moritur cannot be declined by the grammarians according to
the rule followed by similar words. For oritur gives the
form ortus est for the perfect; and all similar verbs form
this tense from their perfect participles. But if we ask
the perfect of moritur, we get the regular answer, mortuus[Pg 533]
est with a double u. For thus mortuus is pronounced, like
fatuus, arduus, conspicuus, and similar words, which are not
perfect participles but adjectives, and are declined without
regard to tense. But mortuus, though in form an adjective,
is used as perfect participle, as if that were to be declined
which cannot be declined; and thus it has suitably come
to pass that, as the thing itself cannot in point of fact be
declined, so neither can the word significant of the act be
declined. Yet, by the aid of our Redeemer’s grace, we may
manage at least to decline the second. For that is more
grievous still, and, indeed, of all evils the worst, since it consists
not in the separation of soul and body, but in the uniting
of both in death eternal. And there, in striking contrast to
our present conditions, men will not be before or after death,
but always in death; and thus never living, never dead, but
endlessly dying. And never can a man be more disastrously
in death than when death itself shall be deathless.

12. What death God intended, when He threatened our first parents with death
if they should disobey His commandment.

When, therefore, it is asked what death it was with which
God threatened our first parents if they should transgress
the commandment they had received from Him, and should
fail to preserve their obedience,—whether it was the death
of soul, or of body, or of the whole man, or that which is
called second death,—we must answer, It is all. For the
first consists of two; the second is the complete death, which
consists of all. For, as the whole earth consists of many
lands, and the Church universal of many churches, so death
universal consists of all deaths. The first consists of two,
one of the body, and another of the soul. So that the first
death is a death of the whole man, since the soul without
God and without the body suffers punishment for a time;
but the second is when the soul, without God but with the
body, suffers punishment everlasting. When, therefore, God
said to that first man whom he had placed in Paradise, referring
to the forbidden fruit, “In the day that thou eatest
thereof thou shalt surely die,”[588] that threatening included not
only the first part of the first death, by which the soul is[Pg 534]
deprived of God; nor only the subsequent part of the first
death, by which the body is deprived of the soul; nor only
the whole first death itself, by which the soul is punished in
separation from God and from the body;—but it includes
whatever of death there is, even to that final death which is
called second, and to which none is subsequent.

13. What was the first punishment of the transgression of our first parents?

For, as soon as our first parents had transgressed the commandment,
divine grace forsook them, and they were confounded
at their own wickedness; and therefore they took
fig-leaves (which were possibly the first that came to hand in
their troubled state of mind), and covered their shame; for
though their members remained the same, they had shame
now where they had none before. They experienced a new
motion of their flesh, which had become disobedient to them,
in strict retribution of their own disobedience to God. For
the soul, revelling in its own liberty, and scorning to serve
God, was itself deprived of the command it had formerly
maintained over the body. And because it had wilfully
deserted its superior Lord, it no longer held its own inferior
servant; neither could it hold the flesh subject, as it would
always have been able to do had it remained itself subject to
God. Then began the flesh to lust against the Spirit,[589] in
which strife we are born, deriving from the first transgression
a seed of death, and bearing in our members, and in our
vitiated nature, the contest or even victory of the flesh.

14. In what state man was made by God, and into what estate he fell by the
choice of his own will.

For God, the author of natures, not of vices, created man
upright; but man, being of his own will corrupted, and justly
condemned, begot corrupted and condemned children. For
we all were in that one man, since we all were that one man
who fell into sin by the woman who was made from him
before the sin. For not yet was the particular form created
and distributed to us, in which we as individuals were to
live, but already the seminal nature was there from which[Pg 535]
we were to be propagated; and this being vitiated by sin, and
bound by the chain of death, and justly condemned, man could
not be born of man in any other state. And thus, from the
bad use of free will, there originated the whole train of evil,
which, with its concatenation of miseries, convoys the human
race from its depraved origin, as from a corrupt root, on to the
destruction of the second death, which has no end, those only
being excepted who are freed by the grace of God.

15. That Adam in his sin forsook God ere God forsook him, and that his
falling away from God was the first death of the soul.

It may perhaps be supposed that because God said, “Ye
shall die the death,”[590] and not “deaths,” we should understand
only that death which occurs when the soul is deserted by
God, who is its life; for it was not deserted by God, and so
deserted Him, but deserted Him, and so was deserted by Him.
For its own will was the originator of its evil, as God was
the originator of its motions towards good, both in making it
when it was not, and in re-making it when it had fallen and
perished. But though we suppose that God meant only this.
death, and that the words, “In the day ye eat of it ye shall
die the death,” should be understood as meaning, “In the day
ye desert me in disobedience, I will desert you in justice,” yet
assuredly in this death the other deaths also were threatened,
which were its inevitable consequence. For in the first stirring
of the disobedient motion which was felt in the flesh of the
disobedient soul, and which caused our first parents to cover
their shame, one death indeed is experienced, that, namely,
which occurs when God forsakes the soul. (This was intimated
by the words He uttered, when the man, stupefied by
fear, had hid himself, “Adam, where art thou?”[591]—words
which He used not in ignorance of inquiry, but warning him
to consider where he was, since God was not with him.) But
when the soul itself forsook the body, corrupted and decayed
with age, the other death was experienced of which God had
spoken in pronouncing man’s sentence, “Earth thou art, and
unto earth shalt thou return.”[592] And of these two deaths that
first death of the whole man is composed. And this first death[Pg 536]
is finally followed by the second, unless man be freed by grace.
For the body would not return to the earth from which it was
made, save only by the death proper to itself, which occurs
when it is forsaken of the soul, its life. And therefore it is
agreed among all Christians who truthfully hold the catholic
faith, that we are subject to the death of the body, not by the
law of nature, by which God ordained no death for man, but
by His righteous infliction on account of sin; for God, taking
vengeance on sin, said to the man, in whom we all then were,
“Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.”

16. Concerning the philosophers who think that the separation of soul and body
is not penal, though Plato represents the supreme Deity as promising to
the inferior gods that they shall never be dismissed from their bodies.

But the philosophers against whom we are defending the
city of God, that is, His Church, seem to themselves to have
good cause to deride us, because we say that the separation of the
soul from the body is to be held as part of man’s punishment.
For they suppose that the blessedness of the soul then only is
complete, when it is quite denuded of the body, and returns to
God a pure and simple, and, as it were, naked soul. On this
point, if I should find nothing in their own literature to refute
this opinion, I should be forced laboriously to demonstrate that
it is not the body, but the corruptibility of the body, which is
a burden to the soul. Hence that sentence of Scripture we
quoted in a foregoing book, “For the corruptible body presseth
down the soul.”[593] The word corruptible is added to show that
the soul is burdened, not by any body whatsoever, but by the
body such as it has become in consequence of sin. And even
though the word had not been added, we could understand
nothing else. But when Plato most expressly declares that
the gods who are made by the Supreme have immortal bodies,
and when he introduces their Maker himself promising them
as a great boon that they should abide in their bodies eternally,
and never by any death be loosed from them, why do these
adversaries of ours, for the sake of troubling the Christian
faith, feign to be ignorant of what they quite well know, and
even prefer to contradict themselves rather than lose an opportunity
of contradicting us? Here are Plato’s words, as Cicero[Pg 537]
has translated them,[594] in which he introduces the Supreme
addressing the gods He had made, and saying, “Ye who are
sprung from a divine stock, consider of what works I am the
parent and author. These (your bodies) are indestructible
so long as I will it; although all that is composed can be
destroyed. But it is wicked to dissolve what reason has
compacted. But, seeing that ye have been born, ye cannot
indeed be immortal and indestructible; yet ye shall by no
means be destroyed, nor shall any fates consign you to death,
and prove superior to my will, which is a stronger assurance
of your perpetuity than those bodies to which ye were joined
when ye were born.” Plato, you see, says that the gods are
both mortal by the connection of the body and soul, and yet
are rendered immortal by the will and decree of their Maker.
If, therefore, it is a punishment to the soul to be connected
with any body whatever, why does God address them as if
they were afraid of death, that is, of the separation of soul and
body? Why does He seek to reassure them by promising
them immortality, not in virtue of their nature, which is
composite and not simple, but by virtue of His invincible
will, whereby He can effect that neither things born die, nor
things compounded be dissolved, but preserved eternally?

Whether this opinion of Plato’s about the stars is true or
not, is another question. For we cannot at once grant to him
that these luminous bodies or globes, which by day and night
shine on the earth with the light of their bodily substance,
have also intellectual and blessed souls which animate each
its own body, as he confidently affirms of the universe itself,
as if it were one huge animal, in which all other animals were
contained.[595] But this, as I said, is another question, which we[Pg 538]
have not undertaken to discuss at present. This much only
I deemed right to bring forward, in opposition to those who so
pride themselves on being, or on being called Platonists, that
they blush to be Christians, and who cannot brook to be called
by a name which the common people also bear, lest they
vulgarize the philosophers’ coterie, which is proud in proportion
to its exclusiveness. These men, seeking a weak point in the
Christian doctrine, select for attack the eternity of the body,
as if it were a contradiction to contend for the blessedness of
the soul, and to wish it to be always resident in the body,
bound, as it were, in a lamentable chain; and this although
Plato, their own founder and master, affirms that it was granted
by the Supreme as a boon to the gods He had made, that
they should not die, that is, should not be separated from the
bodies with which He had connected them.

17. Against those who affirm that earthly bodies cannot be made incorruptible
and eternal.

These same philosophers further contend that terrestrial
bodies cannot be eternal, though they make no doubt that the
whole earth, which is itself the central member of their god,—not,
indeed, of the greatest, but yet of a great god, that is, of
this whole world,—is eternal. Since, then, the Supreme made
for them another god, that is, this world, superior to the other
gods beneath Him; and since they suppose that this god is an
animal, having, as they affirm, a rational or intellectual soul
enclosed in the huge mass of its body, and having, as the fitly
situated and adjusted members of its body, the four elements,
whose union they wish to be indissoluble and eternal, lest
perchance this great god of theirs might some day perish;
what reason is there that the earth, which is the central
member in the body of a greater creature, should be eternal,
and the bodies of other terrestrial creatures should not possibly
be eternal if God should so will it? But earth, say they, must
return to earth, out of which the terrestrial bodies of the
animals have been taken. For this, they say, is the reason
of the necessity of their death and dissolution, and this the
manner of their restoration to the solid and eternal earth
whence they came. But if any one says the same thing of
fire, holding that the bodies which are derived from it to make[Pg 539]
celestial beings must be restored to the universal fire, does
not the immortality which Plato represents these gods as
receiving from the Supreme evanesce in the heat of this
dispute? Or does this not happen with those celestials
because God, whose will, as Plato says, overpowers all powers,
has willed it should not be so? What, then, hinders God from
ordaining the same of terrestrial bodies? And since, indeed,
Plato acknowledges that God can prevent things that are born
from dying, and things that are joined from being sundered,
and things that are composed from being dissolved, and can
ordain that the souls once allotted to their bodies should never
abandon them, but enjoy along with them immortality and
everlasting bliss, why may He not also effect that terrestrial
bodies die not? Is God powerless to do everything that is
special to the Christian’s creed, but powerful to effect everything
the Platonists desire? The philosophers, forsooth, have
been admitted to a knowledge of the divine purposes and
power which has been denied to the prophets! The truth is,
that the Spirit of God taught His prophets so much of His
will as He thought fit to reveal, but the philosophers, in their
efforts to discover it, were deceived by human conjecture.

But they should not have been so led astray, I will not say
by their ignorance, but by their obstinacy, as to contradict
themselves so frequently; for they maintain, with all their
vaunted might, that in order to the happiness of the soul, it
must abandon not only its earthly body, but every kind of
body. And yet they hold that the gods, whose souls are most
blessed, are bound to everlasting bodies, the celestials to fiery
bodies, and the soul of Jove himself (or this world, as they
would have us believe) to all the physical elements which
compose this entire mass reaching from earth to heaven. For
this soul Plato believes to be extended and diffused by musical
numbers,[596] from the middle of the inside of the earth, which
geometricians call the centre, outwards through all its parts
to the utmost heights and extremities of the heavens; so that
this world is a very great and blessed immortal animal, whose
soul has both the perfect blessedness of wisdom, and never
leaves its own body, and whose body has life everlasting[Pg 540]
from the soul, and by no means clogs or hinders it, though
itself be not a simple body, but compacted of so many and so
huge materials. Since, therefore, they allow so much to their
own conjectures, why do they refuse to believe that by the
divine will and power immortality can be conferred on earthly
bodies, in which the souls would be neither oppressed with
the burden of them, nor separated from them by any death,
but live eternally and blessedly? Do they not assert that
their own gods so live in bodies of fire, and that Jove himself,
their king, so lives in the physical elements? If, in order to
its blessedness, the soul must quit every kind of body, let
their gods flit from the starry spheres, and Jupiter from earth
to sky; or, if they cannot do so, let them be pronounced
miserable. But neither alternative will these men adopt. For,
on the one hand, they dare not ascribe to their own gods a
departure from the body, lest they should seem to worship
mortals; on the other hand, they dare not deny their happiness,
lest they should acknowledge wretches as gods. Therefore,
to obtain blessedness, we need not quit every kind of
body, but only the corruptible, cumbersome, painful, dying,—not
such bodies as the goodness of God contrived for the first
man, but such only as man’s sin entailed.

18. Of earthly bodies, which the philosophers affirm cannot be in heavenly places,
because whatever is of earth is by its natural weight attracted to earth.

But it is necessary, they say, that the natural weight of
earthly bodies either keep them on earth or draw them to it;
and therefore they cannot be in heaven. Our first parents
were indeed on earth, in a well-wooded and fruitful spot,
which has been named Paradise. But let our adversaries a
little more carefully consider this subject of earthly weight,
because it has important bearings, both on the ascension of
the body of Christ, and also on the resurrection body of the
saints. If human skill can by some contrivance fabricate
vessels that float, out of metals which sink as soon as they
are placed on the water, how much more credible is it that
God, by some occult mode of operation, should even more
certainly effect that these earthy masses be emancipated from
the downward pressure of their weight? This cannot be impossible
to that God by whose almighty will, according to[Pg 541]
Plato, neither things born perish, nor things composed dissolve,
especially since it is much more wonderful that spiritual and
bodily essences be conjoined than that bodies be adjusted to
other material substances. Can we not also easily believe
that souls, being made perfectly blessed, should be endowed
with the power of moving their earthy but incorruptible
bodies as they please, with almost spontaneous movement,
and of placing them where they please with the readiest
action? If the angels transport whatever terrestrial creatures
they please from any place they please, and convey them
whither they please, is it to be believed that they cannot do
so without toil and the feeling of burden? Why, then, may
we not believe that the spirits of the saints, made perfect and
blessed by divine grace, can carry their own bodies where
they please, and set them where they will? For, though we
have been accustomed to notice, in bearing weights, that the
larger the quantity the greater the weight of earthy bodies is,
and that the greater the weight the more burdensome it is,
yet the soul carries the members of its own flesh with less
difficulty when they are massive with health, than in sickness
when they are wasted. And though the hale and strong man
feels heavier to other men carrying him than the lank and
sickly, yet the man himself moves and carries his own body
with less feeling of burden when he has the greater bulk of
vigorous health, than when his frame is reduced to a minimum
by hunger or disease. Of such consequence, in estimating the
weight of earthly bodies, even while yet corruptible and mortal,
is the consideration not of dead weight, but of the healthy
equilibrium of the parts. And what words can tell the difference
between what we now call health and future immortality?
Let not the philosophers, then, think to upset our
faith with arguments from the weight of bodies; for I don’t
care to inquire why they cannot believe an earthly body can
be in heaven, while the whole earth is suspended on nothing.
For perhaps the world keeps its central place by the same
law that attracts to its centre all heavy bodies. But this I
say, if the lesser gods, to whom Plato committed the creation
of man and the other terrestrial creatures, were able, as he
affirms, to withdraw from the fire its quality of burning, while[Pg 542]
they left it that of lighting, so that it should shine through
the eyes; and if to the supreme God Plato also concedes the
power of preserving from death things that have been born,
and of preserving from dissolution things that are composed
of parts so different as body and spirit;—are we to hesitate to
concede to this same God the power to operate on the flesh of
him whom He has endowed with immortality, so as to withdraw
its corruption but leave its nature, remove its burdensome
weight but retain its seemly form and members? But
concerning our belief in the resurrection of the dead, and
concerning their immortal bodies, we shall speak more at
large, God willing, in the end of this work.

19. Against the opinion of those who do not believe that the primitive men would
have been immortal if they had not sinned.

At present let us go on, as we have begun, to give some
explanation regarding the bodies of our first parents. I say
then, that, except as the just consequence of sin, they would
not have been subjected even to this death, which is good to
the good,—this death, which is not exclusively known and
believed in by a few, but is known to all, by which soul and
body are separated, and by which the body of an animal
which was but now visibly living is now visibly dead. For
though there can be no manner of doubt that the souls of the
just and holy dead live in peaceful rest, yet so much better
would it be for them to be alive in healthy, well-conditioned
bodies, that even those who hold the tenet that it is most
blessed to be quit of every kind of body, condemn this opinion
in spite of themselves. For no one will dare to set wise men,
whether yet to die or already dead,—in other words, whether
already quit of the body, or shortly to be so,—above the immortal
gods, to whom the Supreme, in Plato, promises as a
munificent gift life indissoluble, or in eternal union with their
bodies. But this same Plato thinks that nothing better can
happen to men than that they pass through life piously and
justly, and, being separated from their bodies, be received
into the bosom of the gods, who never abandon theirs; “that,
oblivious of the past, they may revisit the upper air, and
conceive the longing to return again to the body.”[597] Virgil[Pg 543]
is applauded for borrowing this from the Platonic system.
Assuredly Plato thinks that the souls of mortals cannot
always be in their bodies, but must necessarily be dismissed
by death; and, on the other hand, he thinks that without
bodies they cannot endure for ever, but with ceaseless alternation
pass from life to death, and from death to life. This
difference, however, he sets between wise men and the rest,
that they are carried after death to the stars, that each man
may repose for a while in a star suitable for him, and may
thence return to the labours and miseries of mortals when he
has become oblivious of his former misery, and possessed with
the desire of being embodied. Those, again, who have lived
foolishly transmigrate into bodies fit for them, whether human
or bestial. Thus he has appointed even the good and wise
souls to a very hard lot indeed, since they do not receive
such bodies as they might always and even immortally inhabit,
but such only as they can neither permanently retain
nor enjoy eternal purity without. Of this notion of Plato’s,
we have in a former book already said[598] that Porphyry was
ashamed in the light of these Christian times, so that he not
only emancipated human souls from a destiny in the bodies of
beasts, but also contended for the liberation of the souls of
the wise from all bodily ties, so that, escaping from all flesh,
they might, as bare and blessed souls, dwell with the Father
time without end. And that he might not seem to be outbid
by Christ’s promise of life everlasting to His saints, he also
established purified souls in endless felicity, without return to
their former woes; but, that he might contradict Christ, he
denies the resurrection of incorruptible bodies, and maintains
that these souls will live eternally, not only without earthly
bodies, but without any bodies at all. And yet, whatever he
meant by this teaching, he at least did not teach that these
souls should offer no religious observance to the gods who
dwelt in bodies. And why did he not, unless because he did
not believe that the souls, even though separate from the body,
were superior to those gods? Wherefore, if these philosophers
will not dare (as I think they will not) to set human souls
above the gods who are most blessed, and yet are tied eternally[Pg 544]
to their bodies, why do they find that absurd which the
Christian faith preaches,[599] namely, that our first parents were
so created that, if they had not sinned, they would not have
been dismissed from their bodies by any death, but would
have been endowed with immortality as the reward of their
obedience, and would have lived eternally with their bodies;
and further, that the saints will in the resurrection inhabit
those very bodies in which they have here toiled, but in such
sort that neither shall any corruption or unwieldiness be
suffered to attach to their flesh, nor any grief or trouble to
cloud their felicity?

20. That the flesh now resting in peace shall be raised to a perfection not
enjoyed by the flesh of our first parents.

Thus the souls of departed saints are not affected by the
death which dismisses them from their bodies, because their
flesh rests in hope, no matter what indignities it receives after
sensation is gone. For they do not desire that their bodies be
forgotten, as Plato thinks fit, but rather, because they remember
what has been promised by Him who deceives no man, and
who gave them security for the safe keeping even of the hairs
of their head, they with a longing patience wait in hope of the
resurrection of their bodies, in which they have suffered many
hardships, and are now to suffer never again. For if they did
not “hate their own flesh,” when it, with its native infirmity,
opposed their will, and had to be constrained by the spiritual
law, how much more shall they love it, when it shall even
itself have become spiritual! For as, when the spirit serves
the flesh, it is fitly called carnal, so, when the flesh serves the
spirit, it will justly be called spiritual. Not that it is converted
into spirit, as some fancy from the words, “It is sown in corruption,
it is raised in incorruption,”[600] but because it is subject
to the spirit with a perfect and marvellous readiness of
obedience, and responds in all things to the will that has entered
on immortality,—all reluctance, all corruption, and all slowness
being removed. For the body will not only be better than it
was here in its best estate of health, but it will surpass the[Pg 545]
bodies of our first parents ere they sinned. For, though they
were not to die unless they should sin, yet they used food as
men do now, their bodies not being as yet spiritual, but animal
only. And though they decayed not with years, nor drew
nearer to death,—a condition secured to them in God’s marvellous
grace by the tree of life, which grew along with the
forbidden tree in the midst of Paradise,—yet they took other
nourishment, though not of that one tree, which was interdicted
not because it was itself bad, but for the sake of commending
a pure and simple obedience, which is the great virtue
of the rational creature set under the Creator as his Lord. For,
though no evil thing was touched, yet if a thing forbidden
was touched, the very disobedience was sin. They were, then,
nourished by other fruit, which they took that their animal
bodies might not suffer the discomfort of hunger or thirst; but
they tasted the tree of life, that death might not steal upon
them from any quarter, and that they might not, spent with
age, decay. Other fruits were, so to speak, their nourishment,
but this their sacrament. So that the tree of life would seem
to have been in the terrestrial Paradise what the wisdom of
God is in the spiritual, of which it is written, “She is a tree
of life to them that lay hold upon her.”[601]

21. Of Paradise, that it can be understood in a spiritual sense without sacrificing
the historic truth of the narrative regarding the real place.

On this account some allegorize all that concerns Paradise
itself, where the first men, the parents of the human race, are,
according to the truth of holy Scripture, recorded to have been;
and they understand all its trees and fruit-bearing plants as
virtues and habits of life, as if they had no existence in the
external world, but were only so spoken of or related for the
sake of spiritual meanings. As if there could not be a real
terrestrial Paradise! As if there never existed these two
women, Sarah and Hagar, nor the two sons who were born
to Abraham, the one of the bond woman, the other of the free,
because the apostle says that in them the two covenants were
prefigured; or as if water never flowed from the rock when
Moses struck it, because therein Christ can be seen in a figure,
as the same apostle says, “Now that rock was Christ!”[602] No[Pg 546]
one, then, denies that Paradise may signify the life of the
blessed; its four rivers, the four virtues, prudence, fortitude,
temperance, and justice; its trees, all useful knowledge; its
fruits, the customs of the godly; its tree of life, wisdom herself,
the mother of all good; and the tree of the knowledge of
good and evil, the experience of a broken commandment. The
punishment which God appointed was in itself a just, and therefore
a good thing; but man’s experience of it is not good.

These things can also and more profitably be understood of
the Church, so that they become prophetic foreshadowings of
things to come. Thus Paradise is the Church, as it is called in
the Canticles;[603] the four rivers of Paradise are the four gospels;
the fruit-trees the saints, and the fruit their works; the tree
of life is the holy of holies, Christ; the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil, the will’s free choice. For if man despise
the will of God, he can only destroy himself; and so he learns
the difference between consecrating himself to the common
good and revelling in his own. For he who loves himself is
abandoned to himself, in order that, being overwhelmed with
fears and sorrows, he may cry, if there be yet soul in him to
feel his ills, in the words of the psalm, “My soul is cast down
within me,”[604] and when chastened, may say, “Because of his
strength I will wait upon Thee.”[605] These and similar allegorical
interpretations may be suitably put upon Paradise without
giving offence to any one, while yet we believe the strict
truth of the history, confirmed by its circumstantial narrative
of facts.[606]

22. That the bodies of the saints shall after the resurrection be spiritual, and
yet flesh shall not be changed into spirit.

The bodies of the righteous, then, such as they shall be in
the resurrection, shall need neither any fruit to preserve them
from dying of disease or the wasting decay of old age, nor any
other physical nourishment to allay the cravings of hunger or
of thirst; for they shall be invested with so sure and every[Pg 547]
way inviolable an immortality, that they shall not eat save
when they choose, nor be under the necessity of eating, while
they enjoy the power of doing so. For so also was it with
the angels who presented themselves to the eye and touch of
men, not because they could do no otherwise, but because
they were able and desirous to suit themselves to men by a
kind of manhood ministry. For neither are we to suppose,
when men receive them as guests, that the angels eat only in
appearance, though to any who did not know them to be
angels they might seem to eat from the same necessity as ourselves.
So these words spoken in the Book of Tobit, “You
saw me eat, but you saw it but in vision;”[607] that is, you thought
I took food as you do for the sake of refreshing my body.
But if in the case of the angels another opinion seems more
capable of defence, certainly our faith leaves no room to doubt
regarding our Lord Himself, that even after His resurrection,
and when now in spiritual but yet real flesh, He ate and drank
with His disciples; for not the power, but the need, of eating
and drinking is taken from these bodies. And so they will
be spiritual, not because they shall cease to be bodies, but
because they shall subsist by the quickening spirit.

23. What we are to understand by the animal and spiritual body; or of those
who die in Adam, and of those who are made alive in Christ.

For as those bodies of ours, that have a living soul, though
not as yet a quickening spirit, are called soul-informed bodies,
and yet are not souls but bodies, so also those bodies are
called spiritual,—yet God forbid we should therefore suppose
them to be spirits and not bodies,—which, being quickened by
the Spirit, have the substance, but not the unwieldiness and corruption
of flesh. Man will then be not earthly but heavenly,—not
because the body will not be that very body which was
made of earth, but because by its heavenly endowment it will
be a fit inhabitant of heaven, and this not by losing its nature,
but by changing its quality. The first man, of the earth
earthy, was made a living soul, not a quickening spirit,—which
rank was reserved for him as the reward of obedience. And
therefore his body, which required meat and drink to satisfy
hunger and thirst, and which had no absolute and indestructible[Pg 548]
immortality, but by means of the tree of life warded off
the necessity of dying, and was thus maintained in the flower
of youth,—this body, I say, was doubtless not spiritual, but
animal; and yet it would not have died but that it provoked
God’s threatened vengeance by offending. And though sustenance
was not denied him even outside Paradise, yet, being forbidden
the tree of life, he was delivered over to the wasting of
time, at least in respect of that life which, had he not sinned,
he might have retained perpetually in Paradise, though only
in an animal body, till such time as it became spiritual in
acknowledgment of his obedience.

Wherefore, although we understand that this manifest death,
which consists in the separation of soul and body, was also
signified by God when He said, “In the day thou eatest
thereof thou shalt surely die,”[608] it ought not on that account to
seem absurd that they were not dismissed from the body on that
very day on which they took the forbidden and death-bringing
fruit. For certainly on that very day their nature was altered
for the worse and vitiated, and by their most just banishment
from the tree of life they were involved in the necessity even
of bodily death, in which necessity we are born. And therefore
the apostle does not say, “The body indeed is doomed to
die on account of sin,” but he says, “The body indeed is
dead because of sin.” Then he adds, “But if the Spirit of
Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He
that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your
mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwelleth in you.”[609] Then
accordingly shall the body become a quickening spirit which
is now a living soul; and yet the apostle calls it “dead,” because
already it lies under the necessity of dying. But in
Paradise it was so made a living soul, though not a quickening
spirit, that it could not properly be called dead, for, save
through the commission of sin, it could not come under the
power of death. Now, since God by the words, “Adam, where
art thou?” pointed to the death of the soul, which results
when He abandons it, and since in the words, “Earth thou
art, and unto earth shalt thou return,”[610] He signified the
death of the body, which results when the soul departs from[Pg 549]
it, we are led, therefore, to believe that He said nothing of
the second death, wishing it to be kept hidden, and reserving
it for the New Testament dispensation, in which it is most
plainly revealed. And this He did in order that, first of all,
it might be evident that this first death, which is common to
all, was the result of that sin which in one man became common
to all.[611] But the second death is not common to all, those
being excepted who were “called according to His purpose.
For whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be
conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the first-born
among many brethren.”[612] Those the grace of God has,
by a Mediator, delivered from the second death.

Thus the apostle states that the first man was made in an
animal body. For, wishing to distinguish the animal body
which now is from the spiritual, which is to be in the resurrection,
he says, “It is sown in corruption, it is raised in
incorruption: it is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory:
it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power: it is sown a
natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.” Then, to prove
this, he goes on, “There is a natural body, and there is a
spiritual body.” And to show what the animated body is,
he says, “Thus it was written, The first man Adam was made
a living soul, the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.”[613]
He wished thus to show what the animated body is, though
Scripture did not say of the first man Adam, when his soul
was created by the breath of God, “Man was made in an
animated body,” but “Man was made a living soul.”[614] By
these words, therefore, “The first man was made a living soul,”
the apostle wishes man’s animated body to be understood.
But how he wishes the spiritual body to be understood he
shows when he adds, “But the last Adam was made a
quickening spirit,” plainly referring to Christ, who has so
risen from the dead that He cannot die any more. He then
goes on to say, “But that was not first which is spiritual,
but that which is natural; and afterward that which is
spiritual.” And here he much more clearly asserts that he
referred to the animal body when he said that the first man[Pg 550]
was made a living soul, and to the spiritual when he said that
the last man was made a quickening spirit. The animal
body is the first, being such as the first Adam had, and which
would not have died had he not sinned, being such also as
we now have, its nature being changed and vitiated by sin to
the extent of bringing us under the necessity of death, and
being such as even Christ condescended first of all to assume,
not indeed of necessity, but of choice; but afterwards comes
the spiritual body, which already is worn by anticipation by
Christ as our head, and will be worn by His members in the
resurrection of the dead.

Then the apostle subjoins a notable difference between these
two men, saying, “The first man is of the earth, earthy; the
second man is the Lord from heaven. As is the earthy, such
are they also that are earthy; and as is the heavenly, such
are they also that are heavenly. And as we have borne the
image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the
heavenly.”[615] So he elsewhere says, “As many of you as have
been baptized into Christ have put on Christ;”[616] but in very
deed this shall be accomplished when that which is animal in
us by our birth shall have become spiritual in our resurrection.
For, to use his words again, “We are saved by hope.”[617]
Now we bear the image of the earthly man by the propagation
of sin and death, which pass on us by ordinary generation;
but we bear the image of the heavenly by the grace of
pardon and life eternal, which regeneration confers upon us
through the Mediator of God and men, the Man Christ Jesus.
And He is the heavenly Man of Paul’s passage, because He
came from heaven to be clothed with a body of earthly mortality,
that He might clothe it with heavenly immortality.
And he calls others heavenly, because by grace they become
His members, that, together with them, He may become one
Christ, as head and body. In the same epistle he puts this yet
more clearly: “Since by man came death, by Man came also
the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even
so in Christ shall all be made alive,”[618]—that is to say, in a
spiritual body which shall be made a quickening spirit. Not[Pg 551]
that all who die in Adam shall be members of Christ,—for the
great majority shall be punished in eternal death,—but he
uses the word “all” in both clauses, because, as no one dies
in an animal body except in Adam, so no one is quickened
a spiritual body save in Christ. We are not, then, by any
means to suppose that we shall in the resurrection have such
a body as the first man had before he sinned, nor that the
words, “As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy,”
are to be understood of that which was brought about by sin;
for we are not to think that Adam had a spiritual body before
he fell, and that, in punishment of his sin, it was changed into
an animal body. If this be thought, small heed has been
given to the words of so great a teacher, who says, “There is
a natural body, there is also a spiritual body; as it is written,
The first man Adam was made a living soul.” Was it after
sin he was made so? or was not this the primal condition
of man from which the blessed apostle selects his testimony
to show what the animal body is?

24. How we must understand that breathing of God by which “the first man
was made a living soul,” and that also by which the Lord conveyed His
Spirit to His disciples when He said, “Receive ye the Holy Ghost.”

Some have hastily supposed from the words, “God breathed
into Adam’s nostrils the breath of life, and man became a
living soul,”[619] that a soul was not then first given to man, but
that the soul already given was quickened by the Holy Ghost.
They are encouraged in this supposition by the fact that the
Lord Jesus after His resurrection breathed on His disciples,
and said, “Receive ye the Holy Spirit.”[620] From this they
suppose that the same thing was effected in either case, as
if the evangelist had gone on to say, And they became living
souls. But if he had made this addition, we should only
understand that the Spirit is in some way the life of souls,
and that without Him reasonable souls must be accounted
dead, though their bodies seem to live before our eyes. But
that this was not what happened when man was created, the
very words of the narrative sufficiently show: “And God made
man dust of the earth;” which some have thought to render
more clearly by the words, “And God formed man of the clay[Pg 552]
of the earth.” For it had before been said that “there went
up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the
ground,”[621] in order that the reference to clay, formed of this
moisture and dust, might be understood. For on this verse
there immediately follows the announcement, “And God
created man dust of the earth;” so those Greek manuscripts
have it from which this passage has been translated into
Latin. But whether one prefers to read “created” or “formed,”
where the Greek reads ἔπλασεν, is of little importance; yet
“formed” is the better rendering. But those who preferred
“created” thought they thus avoided the ambiguity arising
from the fact, that in the Latin language the usage obtains
that those are said to form a thing who frame some feigned
and fictitious thing. This man, then, who was created of the
dust of the earth, or of the moistened dust or clay,—this “dust
of the earth” (that I may use the express words of Scripture)
was made, as the apostle teaches, an animated body when he
received a soul. This man, he says, “was made a living soul;”
that is, this fashioned dust was made a living soul.

They say, Already he had a soul, else he would not be
called a man; for man is not a body alone, nor a soul alone,
but a being composed of both. This, indeed, is true, that the
soul is not the whole man, but the better part of man; the
body not the whole, but the inferior part of man; and that
then, when both are joined, they receive the name of man,—which,
however, they do not severally lose even when we
speak of them singly. For who is prohibited from saying, in
colloquial usage, “That man is dead, and is now at rest or in
torment,” though this can be spoken only of the soul; or “He
is buried in such and such a place,” though this refers only
to the body? Will they say that Scripture follows no such
usage? On the contrary, it so thoroughly adopts it, that even
while a man is alive, and body and soul are united, it calls
each of them singly by the name “man,” speaking of the soul
as the “inward man,” and of the body as the “outward man,”[622]
as if there were two men, though both together are indeed but
one. But we must understand in what sense man is said to
be in the image of God, and is yet dust, and to return to the[Pg 553]
dust. The former is spoken of the rational soul, which God
by His breathing, or, to speak more appropriately, by His inspiration,
conveyed to man, that is, to his body; but the latter
refers to his body, which God formed of the dust, and to
which a soul was given, that it might become a living body,
that is, that man might become a living soul.

Wherefore, when our Lord breathed on His disciples, and
said, “Receive ye the Holy Ghost,” He certainly wished it to
be understood that the Holy Ghost was not only the Spirit
of the Father, but of the only-begotten Son Himself. For
the same Spirit is, indeed, the Spirit of the Father and of
the Son, making with them the trinity of Father, Son, and
Spirit, not a creature, but the Creator. For neither was that
material breath which proceeded from the mouth of His flesh
the very substance and nature of the Holy Spirit, but rather
the intimation, as I said, that the Holy Spirit was common
to the Father and to the Son; for they have not each a separate
Spirit, but both one and the same. Now this Spirit is
always spoken of in sacred Scripture by the Greek word
πνεῦμα, as the Lord, too, named Him in the place cited when
He gave Him to His disciples, and intimated the gift by the
breathing of His lips; and there does not occur to me any
place in the whole Scriptures where He is otherwise named.
But in this passage where it is said, “And the Lord formed
man dust of the earth, and breathed, or inspired, into his face
the breath of life;” the Greek has not πνεῦμα, the usual word
for the Holy Spirit, but πνοή, a word more frequently used
of the creature than of the Creator; and for this reason some
Latin interpreters have preferred to render it by “breath”
rather than “spirit.” For this word occurs also in the Greek
in Isa. lvii. 16, where God says, “I have made all breath,”
meaning, doubtless, all souls. Accordingly, this word πνοή is
sometimes rendered “breath,” sometimes “spirit,” sometimes
“inspiration,” sometimes “aspiration,” sometimes “soul,” even
when it is used of God. Πνεῦμα, on the other hand, is uniformly
rendered “spirit,” whether of man, of whom the apostle says,
“For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit
of man which is in him?”[623] or of beast, as in the book of[Pg 554]
Solomon, “Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward,
and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the
earth?”[624] or of that physical spirit which is called wind, for
so the Psalmist calls it: “Fire and hail; snow and vapours;
stormy wind;”[625] or of the uncreated Creator Spirit, of whom
the Lord said in the gospel, “Receive ye the Holy Ghost,”
indicating the gift by the breathing of His mouth; and when
He says, “Go ye and baptize all nations in the name of the
Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,”[626] words which very
expressly and excellently commend the Trinity; and where it
is said, “God is a Spirit;”[627] and in very many other places
of the sacred writings. In all these quotations from Scripture
we do not find in the Greek the word πνοή used, but
πνεῦμα, and in the Latin, not flatus, but spiritus. Wherefore,
referring again to that place where it is written, “He inspired,”
or, to speak more properly, “breathed into his face the breath
of life,” even though the Greek had not used πνοή (as it has)
but πνεῦμα, it would not on that account necessarily follow
that the Creator Spirit, who in the Trinity is distinctively
called the Holy Ghost, was meant, since, as has been said, it
is plain that πνεῦμα is used not only of the Creator, but also
of the creature.

But, say they, when the Scripture used the word “spirit,”[628]
it would not have added “of life” unless it meant us to
understand the Holy Spirit; nor, when it said, “Man became
a soul,” would it also have inserted the word “living” unless
that life of the soul were signified which is imparted to it
from above by the gift of God. For, seeing that the soul by
itself has a proper life of its own, what need, they ask, was
there of adding living, save only to show that the life which
is given it by the Holy Spirit was meant? What is this but
to fight strenuously for their own conjectures, while they carelessly
neglect the teaching of Scripture? Without troubling
themselves much, they might have found in a preceding page
of this very book of Genesis the words, “Let the earth bring
forth the living soul,”[629] when all the terrestrial animals were
created. Then at a slight interval, but still in the same book,[Pg 555]
was it impossible for them to notice this verse, “All in whose
nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land,
died,” by which it was signified that all the animals which
lived on the earth had perished in the deluge? If, then, we
find that Scripture is accustomed to speak both of the “living
soul” and the “spirit of life” even in reference to beasts; and
if in this place, where it is said, “All things which have the
spirit of life,” the word πνοή, not πνεῦμα, is used; why may
we not say, What need was there to add “living,” since the
soul cannot exist without being alive? or, What need to add
“of life” after the word spirit? But we understand that Scripture
used these expressions in its ordinary style so long as it
speaks of animals, that is, animated bodies, in which the soul
serves as the residence of sensation; but when man is spoken
of, we forget the ordinary and established usage of Scripture,
whereby it signifies that man received a rational soul, which
was not produced out of the waters and the earth like the
other living creatures, but was created by the breath of God.
Yet this creation was so ordered that the human soul should
live in an animal body, like those other animals of which the
Scripture said, “Let the earth produce every living soul,”
and regarding which it again says that in them is the breath
of life, where the word πνοή and not πνεῦμα is used in the
Greek, and where certainly not the Holy Spirit, but their
spirit, is signified under that name.

But, again, they object that breath is understood to have
been emitted from the mouth of God; and if we believe that
is the soul, we must consequently acknowledge it to be of the
same substance, and equal to that wisdom, which says, “I
come out of the mouth of the Most High.”[630] Wisdom, indeed,
does not say it was breathed out of the mouth of God, but
proceeded out of it. But as we are able, when we breathe,
to make a breath, not of our own human nature, but of the
surrounding air, which we inhale and exhale as we draw our
breath and breathe again, so almighty God was able to make
breath, not of His own nature, nor of the creature beneath
Him, but even of nothing; and this breath, when He communicated
it to man’s body, He is most appropriately said to[Pg 556]
have breathed or inspired,—the Immaterial breathing it also
immaterial, but the Immutable not also the immutable; for
it was created, He uncreated. Yet, that these persons who
are forward to quote Scripture, and yet know not the usages
of its language, may know that not only what is equal and
consubstantial with God is said to proceed out of His mouth,
let them hear or read what God says: “So then because thou
art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out
of my mouth.”[631]

There is no ground, then, for our objecting, when the apostle
so expressly distinguishes the animal body from the spiritual,—that
is to say, the body in which we now are from that in
which we are to be. He says, “It is sown a natural body, it
is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there
is a spiritual body. And so it is written, The first man Adam
was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening
spirit. Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but
that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual.
The first man is of the earth, earthy; the second man is the
Lord from heaven. As is the earthy, such are they also that
are earthy; and as is the heavenly, such are they also that
are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the earthy,
we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.”[632] Of all which
words of his we have previously spoken. The animal body,
accordingly, in which the apostle says that the first man
Adam was made, was not so made that it could not die at
all, but so that it should not die unless he should have sinned.
That body, indeed, which shall be made spiritual and immortal
by the quickening Spirit shall not be able to die at all; as
the soul has been created immortal, and therefore, although by
sin it may be said to die, and does lose a certain life of its
own, namely, the Spirit of God, by whom it was enabled to
live wisely and blessedly, yet it does not cease living a kind
of life, though a miserable, because it is immortal by creation.
So, too, the rebellious angels, though by sinning they did in
a sense die, because they forsook God, the Fountain of life,
which while they drank they were able to live wisely and
well, yet they could not so die as to utterly cease living and[Pg 557]
feeling, for they are immortals by creation. And so, after the
final judgment, they shall be hurled into the second death,
and not even there be deprived of life or of sensation, but
shall suffer torment. But those men who have been embraced
by God’s grace, and are become the fellow-citizens of the holy
angels who have continued in bliss, shall never more either
sin or die, being endued with spiritual bodies; yet, being
clothed with immortality, such as the angels enjoy, of which
they cannot be divested even by sinning, the nature of their
flesh shall continue the same, but all carnal corruption and
unwieldiness shall be removed.

There remains a question which must be discussed, and,
by the help of the Lord God of truth, solved: If the motion
of concupiscence in the unruly members of our first parents
arose out of their sin, and only when the divine grace deserted
them; and if it was on that occasion that their eyes were
opened to see, or, more exactly, notice their nakedness, and
that they covered their shame because the shameless motion
of their members was not subject to their will,—how, then,
would they have begotten children had they remained sinless
as they were created? But as this book must be concluded,
and so large a question cannot be summarily disposed of, we
may relegate it to the following book, in which it will be more
conveniently treated.

MURRAY AND GIBB, EDINBURGH,
PRINTERS TO HER MAJESTY’S STATIONERY OFFICE.

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