On the Resurrection of the Dead

Alongside every teaching and argument that holds to the truth about things that exist, some falsehood grows up. It does not grow from any underlying principle, springing up naturally, nor from the cause proper to each thing, but is cultivated by those who value a lawless sowing for the corruption of the truth. This can be seen first from those who in the past devoted themselves to thinking about these matters, and from their disagreement both with their predecessors and with their contemporaries, and not least from the confusion of those who take part in public debate today. Such people have left no truth unslandered: not the being of God, not his knowledge, not his activity, nor the truths that follow from these in due order and sketch out for us the teaching of piety. Some despair utterly and once for all of the truth about these things; others twist it to suit themselves; others make a point of doubting even what is evident. So I think that those who labor on these questions need arguments of two kinds: arguments in defense of the truth, and arguments setting out the truth. Those in defense of the truth are for unbelievers and doubters; those setting it out are for the well-disposed, who receive the truth gladly. For this reason those who wish to examine these questions must consider the need at hand each time, measure their arguments by it, and adapt the order of their treatment to what is required; they must not, for the sake of seeming always to keep the same starting point, neglect what is fitting and the place that belongs to each argument. As regards proof and the natural sequence, the arguments setting out the truth always come before those defending it; but as regards usefulness, the order is reversed, and those defending it come before those setting it out. For a farmer cannot properly cast his seeds into the ground without first clearing away the wild growth that harms the cultivated seeds he sows; nor can a physician introduce healthful medicines into a body that needs treatment without first purging the disease within or stopping what flows in; nor can one who wishes to teach the truth persuade anyone by setting it out, while some false opinion lurks in the minds of his hearers and resists his words. That is why we too, with an eye to usefulness, sometimes put the arguments in defense of the truth before those that set it out; and in considering what is needed, it seems not unprofitable to do the same now with the arguments for the resurrection. For here too we find some who disbelieve entirely, some who doubt, and even some of those who have accepted the first premises as perplexed as the doubters. The most unreasonable thing of all is that they feel this way though they have no ground in the facts for their unbelief, and can find no reasonable cause to give for disbelieving or doubting.

Let us consider the matter in this way. All unbelief ought to arise in people not hastily or from some uncritical opinion, but for some strong reason and with the certainty that comes from the truth; for unbelief is only reasonable when the thing disbelieved seems itself incredible, while to disbelieve what is not incredible is the work of people who do not judge soundly about the truth. So those who disbelieve or doubt the resurrection ought not to give their opinion about it uncritically, according to what seems right to them and what pleases the licentious. Either they should attach the origin of human beings to no cause at all (which is very easily refuted), or, if they ascribe the cause of all that exists to God, they should look at the foundation of this doctrine and show from it that the resurrection deserves no belief at all. They will do this if they can show either that God is unable, or that he is unwilling, to reunite and gather together bodies that have died or even been entirely dissolved, so as to reconstitute the same human beings. If they cannot do this, let them cease from this godless unbelief and from blaspheming what they have no right to. That they speak the truth neither in saying that it is impossible nor in saying that God does not will it will become clear from what follows. Something is truly known to be impossible for someone either because he does not know what is to be done, or because he does not have sufficient power to carry out well what he knows. For one who is ignorant of something that is to be done could neither undertake nor do at all what he does not know; and one who knows well what is to be done, and from what and how it could come about, but has no power at all, or not enough, to do what he knows, would not undertake it in the first place if he were sensible and had considered his own power; and if he undertook it rashly, he would not accomplish what he intended. But God cannot be ignorant of the nature of the bodies that will be raised, whether as wholes or in each part and particle, nor of where each of the dissolved parts goes, and which part of the elements has received what was dissolved and passed back to its kindred element, even if what has been reunited naturally with the whole seems to human beings quite impossible to distinguish. For he knew, before each person was constituted, both the nature of the elements from which human bodies would come and the parts of them from which he was going to take what he chose to constitute the human body. Clearly, then, even after the whole is dissolved, he will not be ignorant of where each of the parts he took to complete each body has gone. As far as the order of things that now prevails among us and our way of judging other matters is concerned, it is a greater thing to know beforehand what has not yet happened; but as far as the dignity and wisdom of God are concerned, both are natural to him, and it is as easy for him to know what has been dissolved as to know beforehand what has not yet happened.

Moreover, that his power is sufficient for the resurrection of bodies is shown by their very origin. For if, when they did not exist, he made human bodies and their first principles at their first constitution, he will also raise them, however they have been dissolved, with equal ease; for this too is equally possible for him. And it does the argument no harm if some suppose that the first principles come from matter, or that human bodies come from the elements as first things, or from seeds. For the same power that can give form to what they regard as formless, adorn with many different forms what was shapeless and unordered, gather the parts of the elements into one, divide the seed, which is one and simple, into many, articulate what was unarticulated, and give life to what was not living, can also unite what has been dissolved, raise up what lies fallen, give life again to what is dead, and change the corruptible into incorruption. It would belong to the same being, and to the same power and wisdom, to separate out what has been broken up by multitudes of animals of every kind, which commonly attack such bodies and take their fill of them, and to reunite it with its own parts and particles: whether it has passed into one of those animals or into many, or from these into others, or has been dissolved along with them and carried back to the first principles by the natural process of dissolution into them. This is what seems to have troubled most of all some even of those who are admired for their wisdom, who thought, I do not know why, that the difficulties raised by the many were strong.

They say that many bodies of those who die miserably in shipwrecks and rivers become food for fish, and that many of those who die in wars, or who for some other harsher reason or turn of events are left unburied, lie exposed as food for any animals that come upon them. When bodies are consumed in this way, and the parts and particles that make them up are broken up among a great multitude of animals and united through nourishment with the bodies of those that feed on them, they say, first, that it is impossible to separate them; and to this they add a second difficulty, harder still. When animals fit for human food have fed on human bodies, and these bodies have passed through their stomachs and been united with the bodies of the animals that ate them, it is absolutely necessary, they say, that the parts of human beings that became food for those animals should pass into other human bodies, since the animals nourished in between pass on the nourishment they received to the human beings whose food they became. Then they add, in the manner of tragedy, the eating of children dared in famines and fits of madness, and children eaten by their own parents through the plots of enemies, and that famous Median table and the tragic feasts of Thyestes, and they string together other such calamities contrived among Greeks and barbarians. From these they establish, as they think, that the resurrection is impossible, since the same parts cannot rise with one body and with another as well: either the bodies of the first persons cannot be reconstituted, since the parts that made them up have passed to others, or, if those parts are given back to the first, the bodies of the later persons will be incomplete.

But such people seem to me, first, to be ignorant of the power and wisdom of the one who created and governs this universe. He has fitted to the nature and kind of each animal the food that suits it and is appropriate to it. He has not decreed that every nature should enter into union or mixture with every body, nor is he at a loss how to separate what has been united. He allows the nature of each created thing to do or suffer what is natural to it, and at other times prevents it; he permits or redirects everything as he wills and toward whatever end he wills. Second, they seem not to have considered the power and nature of each thing that nourishes or is nourished. Otherwise they would have known that not everything a creature takes in, yielding to some external necessity, becomes suitable food for the animal. Some things naturally perish as soon as they come into contact with the enfolding parts of the belly; they are vomited or evacuated or disposed of in some other way, so that they do not undergo even for a moment the first, natural digestion, much less the blending with the body being nourished. Likewise, not everything that is digested and has undergone the first change necessarily reaches the parts to be nourished: some things are separated from the nutritive power in the stomach itself, and others in the second change and the digestion that takes place in the liver, passing into something that has lost the power to nourish. Nor does all that is changed in the liver become food for human beings; it is separated into its natural residues. And the food that remains is sometimes changed into something else in the parts and particles being nourished, according to the predominance of whatever is in excess or superfluous, which tends somehow to destroy whatever comes near it or turn it into itself.

There is, then, great natural difference among all animals; the natural food of each kind of animal varies along with the body that is nourished; and there is a threefold purging and separation in the nourishment of each animal. So everything that is foreign to an animal's nourishment must perish and pass off in its natural way, or be changed into something else, since it cannot be blended in. The power of the nourishing body must be in accord with nature and with the powers of the animal nourished; and only when it has passed through the natural strainers and been thoroughly purified by the natural purgings does it become a perfectly pure addition to the animal's substance. This alone one could truly call food, since it rejects everything foreign and harmful to the constitution of the animal nourished, and all that great bulk taken in to fill the stomach and satisfy the appetite. No one would dispute that this is united with the body nourished, being woven into and molded around all its parts and particles. But food of another kind, contrary to nature, quickly perishes if it meets a stronger power, easily destroys what it overpowers, and turns into bad humors and poisonous qualities, since it brings nothing proper or friendly to the body nourished. The greatest proof of this is that pain, danger, or death follows for many animals when, through excessive appetite, they swallow something poisonous and unnatural mixed with their food. Such a thing would certainly destroy the body nourished, if indeed things that are nourished are nourished by what is proper and natural to them and destroyed by what is contrary. If, then, natural food is divided according to the differences among animals that differ by nature, and if even of this food not everything the animal takes in, nor any part of it at random, is blended with the body nourished, but only what has been purified through every stage of digestion and truly changed for union with a body of that particular kind, and is well fitted to the parts nourished, it is clear that nothing unnatural could ever be united with those for whom it is not proper and suitable food. Either it passes through the belly itself before producing some other humor, raw and corrupt; or, if it stays longer, it produces suffering or a disease hard to cure, destroying along with it both the natural food and the very flesh that needs nourishment. And even if it is expelled at last, overcome by medicines or better food or the natural powers of the body, it flows out with no small harm, bringing nothing peaceable to what is natural, because it cannot be blended with nature.

And in general, even if one grants that the nourishment coming in from such sources (let it be called nourishment, to use the ordinary word), though it is contrary to nature, is separated out and changed into one of the things that moisten or dry or warm or cool, not even so will anything be gained from the concession. For the bodies that rise are reconstituted from their own parts. None of the things mentioned is a part, or holds the relation or position of a part; nor does it always remain with the parts of the body that are nourished, or rise with those that rise, since nothing will then contribute to life any longer, neither blood nor phlegm nor bile nor breath. Nor will bodies then need what the nourished bodies once needed, since the need for what nourished them is done away with, together with the want and corruption of the bodies that were nourished. Again, even if one supposes that the change from such nourishment reaches as far as the flesh, not even so will there be any necessity that the flesh newly formed from such nourishment, when it attaches to the body of another human being, should serve as a part to complete that body. For the flesh that takes it on does not always keep what it has taken on; nor is the flesh so united permanent, remaining with the parts it naturally binds, covers, or warms, as does the flesh that nature has chosen and grown onto the parts with which it has lived out the natural life and its labors. So neither when the matters just examined are judged as they should be, nor when the arguments against them are accepted for the sake of argument, can it be shown that what the objectors say is true. Human bodies would never be blended with bodies of the same nature, even if people at some time, in ignorance, are deceived in their senses and partake of such a body through some other creature, or directly defile themselves with a body of their own kind through want or madness; unless there are beasts in human form that have escaped our notice, or beings of a nature mixed from human beings and beasts, such as the more daring poets like to invent.

And what need is there to speak of bodies not assigned as food to any animal, but assigned only burial in the earth, in honor of their nature? The Maker has not assigned any animal as food to others of its own kind, even if it is natural food for some creatures of other kinds. If the objectors can show that human flesh has been assigned to human beings as food, nothing will prevent cannibalism from being natural, like anything else nature allows; and those who dare to say such things may then feast on the bodies of their dearest, as being more their own, or even entertain their best friends with them. But if even to say this is impious, and for human beings to partake of human flesh is something most hateful and utterly abominable, more accursed than any lawless and unnatural food or deed; and if what is contrary to nature could never become nourishment for the parts and particles that need it, and what does not become nourishment would not be united with what it cannot naturally nourish; then human bodies would never be combined with bodies like themselves, for which they are unnatural food, even if through some most bitter calamity they often pass through the stomach. Instead, they are separated from the nourishing power and scattered back to the things from which they had their first constitution, and are united with these for however long it may be. And from there they are separated again by the wisdom and power of him who joined every kind of living creature with its proper powers, and each is united fittingly with its own, whether it has been burned by fire, or rotted by water, or consumed by wild beasts or any animals that came upon it, or cut off from the whole body and dissolved before the other parts. United again with one another, they take the same place for the harmony and constitution of the same body, and for the resurrection and life of what died or was even wholly dissolved. It is not the time to dwell on this any longer; the verdict is agreed by all, except those who are half beasts.

Since there are many points more useful for the present inquiry, I now decline to deal with those who take refuge in human works and their human makers, who cannot renew their works when they are broken, worn out by time, or otherwise destroyed. From the example of potters and carpenters they try to show that God too would not wish, or, if he wished, would not be able, to raise a body that has died or been dissolved. They do not consider that by this they insult God in the worst way, putting on the same level the powers of beings utterly different, or rather the very natures of those who use them, and things made by art with things made by nature. To take such arguments seriously is not above reproach; it is truly foolish to answer superficial and empty objections. It is far more fitting, and truest of all, to say that what is impossible with human beings is possible with God. And if the argument shows that it is possible, both by these very sayings, as authoritative, and by all that was examined a little earlier, then clearly it is not impossible. Nor, indeed, is it against God's will.

For what God does not will, he does not will either because it is unjust or because it is unworthy of him. And injustice, again, would be seen either with regard to the one who is to be raised or with regard to someone else besides him. That none of the beings outside him, counted among the things that exist, is wronged is obvious. The intelligible natures would not be wronged by the resurrection of human beings, for the resurrection of human beings is no hindrance to their existence, no harm, no insult. Nor is the nature of irrational or inanimate things wronged, for they will not exist after the resurrection, and nothing can be unjust toward what does not exist. And even if one supposes that they will exist forever, they would not be wronged by the renewal of human bodies. If now, while they submit to human nature and to the needs of human beings, who are in want, and are brought under the yoke and every kind of servitude, they suffer no wrong, then much less will they be wronged when human beings have become incorruptible and free of want, no longer needing their service, and they are set free from all servitude. If they had a voice, they would not accuse the Creator of lowering them below human beings contrary to justice because they did not share in the same resurrection. For the Just One does not measure out an equal end to those whose nature is not equal; and besides, where there is no sense of justice, there can be no complaint of injustice. Nor can it be said that any injustice is seen with regard to the one who rises, the human being himself. He consists of soul and body, and he suffers injustice neither in soul nor in body. No sensible person will say that the soul is wronged; for he would, without noticing it, be rejecting the present life along with it. If now the soul, dwelling in a corruptible and passible body, has suffered no wrong, much less will it be wronged when it lives with a body that is incorruptible and impassible. Nor is the body wronged at all. If now, being corruptible, it is not wronged by being joined with what is incorruptible, clearly it will not be wronged when it is itself incorruptible and joined with what is incorruptible. Nor could anyone say that it is a work unworthy of God to raise up and gather together a body that has been dissolved. For if the lesser work is not unworthy of him, namely to make a body that is corruptible and passible, much more is the greater not unworthy, a body incorruptible and impassible.

If each of the points examined has been demonstrated from what is first by nature and from what follows from it, it is clear that the resurrection of bodies that have been dissolved is possible, willed by God, and a work worthy of the Creator; for these arguments have shown that the contrary is false and that the unbelievers are unreasonable. Why need I speak of how each of these three implies the others and of their connection with one another? If indeed one should speak of connection, as though they were separated by some difference, and should not rather say that what is possible is also willed, and that what God wills is certainly possible and in keeping with the dignity of the one who wills it. That the argument setting out the truth is one thing and the argument defending the truth another has been adequately explained above: how each differs, and when and for whom each is useful. But perhaps nothing prevents us, for the sake of the general soundness of the argument and of the connection between what has been said and what remains, from making a fresh start from these very points and what belongs to them. To the one argument belongs the first place by nature; to the other, to escort the first, prepare its way, and clear out of its path whatever obstructs it or makes it steep. The argument setting out the truth, being necessary to all human beings for their security and salvation, stands first by nature, by order, and by usefulness: by nature, as providing knowledge of things; by order, as existing in and together with the things it makes known; by usefulness, as the source of security and salvation for those who know it. The argument defending the truth is inferior by nature and power, since it is a lesser thing to refute falsehood than to establish truth; and second in order, since its strength is directed against those who hold false opinions, and false opinion grew up from a later sowing and corruption. Yet even so it is often put first and is sometimes more useful, since it removes and clears away beforehand the unbelief that troubles some, and the doubt or false opinion of those who are just coming to the faith. Both are directed to one end, for both the argument that refutes falsehood and the one that establishes truth serve piety; yet they are not simply one. The one is necessary, as I said, to all who believe and care about the truth and their own salvation; the other is sometimes more useful for certain people and against certain people. Let this be said in summary, to recall what has been said already. We must now go on to the subject at hand, and show that the teaching about the resurrection is true: from the cause according to which and for which the first human being came into being, and those after him, even though they did not come into being in the same way; from the common nature of all human beings as human beings; and further, from the judgment their Maker will pass on them for the time each of them lived and the laws by which each conducted himself, a judgment no one would dispute is just.

The argument from the cause is this. We ask whether the human being was made simply and to no purpose, or for some purpose; and if for some purpose, whether he was made simply to live and to continue in the nature in which he was made, or for someone's use; and if for someone's use, whether for the use of the Maker himself or of some other being related to him and thought worthy of greater care. Considering this more generally, we find that every sensible person, when rational judgment moves him to make something, does nothing that he does deliberately to no purpose. He acts either for his own use, or for the need of something else he cares for, or for the sake of the thing he makes, moved by a natural attraction and affection toward bringing it into being. For example (let me use an illustration to make the point clear): a man builds a house for his own need; for oxen, camels, or other animals he needs, he makes the shelter suited to each, not for his own use, as it appears, though ultimately it is for that, but immediately out of care for the creatures he looks after; and he begets children neither for his own need nor for anything else of his, but so that those he begets may exist and continue as long as possible, consoling himself for his own death by the succession of children and grandchildren, and thinking in this way to make the mortal immortal. So much for human beings. But God would not have made the human being to no purpose, for he is wise, and no work of wisdom is purposeless; nor for his own need, for he needs nothing at all, and to one who needs nothing at all, nothing he has made could contribute to his own need. Nor did he make the human being for the sake of any of the other works he made. For none of the beings that use reason and judgment, whether greater or lesser, was made or is made for another's use, but for the sake of its own life and continuance. Reason finds no need that could be the cause of the creation of human beings: the immortals lack nothing and need no contribution at all from human beings in order to exist; and irrational creatures are by nature subject to rule, and serve human beings in the uses for which each was made, but are not made to use human beings. It never was and is not right to put what rules and leads to the use of lesser things, or to subject the rational to the irrational, which are unfit to rule. If, then, the human being was made neither without cause and to no purpose (for nothing made by God is purposeless, at least in the intention of the Maker), nor for the use of the Maker himself or of any other of the works made by God, it is clear that in the first and more general sense God made the human being for his own sake and for the goodness and wisdom seen in all his creation; and in the sense more closely bound up with the beings made, for the sake of their own life, not a life kindled for a short time and then wholly extinguished. That kind of life, I think, God assigned to creeping things and birds and fish, or, to speak more generally, to all irrational creatures. But to those who carry the image of their Maker within themselves, who bear intelligence and have received a share of rational judgment, the Maker allotted everlasting continuance, so that, knowing their Maker and his power and wisdom, and following law and justice, they may pass all eternity free of toil with those virtues by which they strengthened their former life, though they lived in corruptible and earthly bodies. Whatever has been made for the sake of something else will reasonably cease to exist when the things for whose sake it was made cease, and will not continue to no purpose, since nothing purposeless has any place among the things made by God. But beings made for the sake of existing and living according to their nature, since the cause is bound up with their very nature and is seen in their existence alone, could never admit any cause that wholly destroys their existence. And since this cause is always seen in their existing, the living being that was made must certainly be preserved, doing and undergoing what is natural to it, each of its two parts contributing its share. The soul exists and continues unchanged in the nature in which it was made, and carries out what is natural to it (and it is natural for it to govern the impulses of the body and always to judge and measure whatever befalls it by the proper standards and measures). The body is moved according to nature toward what is natural to it, and undergoes the changes allotted to it, including, along with the other changes of age, appearance, or size, the resurrection. For the resurrection is a kind of change, the last of all, and so is the change for the better of those who are still alive at that time.

Trusting in these things no less than in what has already happened, and considering our own nature, we are content with the life that is bound up with want and corruption, as befitting the present existence, and we firmly hope for continuance in incorruption. This hope we do not idly make up from human sources, feeding ourselves on false hopes; we have put our trust in a most unfailing pledge, the purpose of the one who created us. According to this purpose he made the human being of an immortal soul and a body, and furnished him with intelligence and an innate law, to preserve and safeguard the gifts he had given that befit an intelligent existence and a rational life. We know well that he would not have fashioned such a living being and furnished it with everything needed for continuance if he did not will that what he made should continue. If, then, the Maker of this universe made the human being to share in an intelligent life, and, having become a beholder of his majesty and of his wisdom in all things, to continue forever in the contemplation of these, according to God's purpose and the nature the human being received, then the cause of his creation guarantees his everlasting continuance, and his continuance guarantees the resurrection, without which the human being would not continue. From what has been said it is clear that the resurrection is plainly shown by the cause of creation and by the purpose of the Maker. Such being the cause for which the human being was brought into this world, it would be fitting to consider next the argument that follows from it naturally or in due sequence. In the order of inquiry, the nature of the human beings created follows the cause of their creation; the just judgment of their Maker upon them follows their nature; and the end of their life follows all of these. Having examined what comes first, we must next consider the nature of human beings.

The demonstration of the teachings of truth, or of anything put forward for examination, which gives unwavering conviction to what is said, does not take its starting point from somewhere outside, nor from what seems right to some or has been decided by them, but from the common and natural notion, or from the way secondary things follow from first things. Either it concerns first principles, and needs only a reminder to stir up the natural notion; or it concerns what follows naturally from first principles, and needs to proceed in due order, showing what truly follows from what is first or prior. So one neither neglects the truth or the certainty that goes with it, nor confuses what nature has ordered and distinguished, nor breaks the natural sequence. So I think that those who are serious about the question before us, and wish to judge sensibly whether the resurrection of human bodies takes place or not, should first consider well the force of each argument that contributes to proving it, what place each has, and which comes first, which second, which third, and which last. Having arranged them, one should put first the cause of the creation of human beings, that is, the purpose of the Creator in making the human being; and closely join to this the nature of the human beings created, not because it is second in order, but because one cannot judge both at the same time, even though they exist together and contribute equal force to the question. When the resurrection has been clearly shown by these, as the first arguments, which have their origin in creation, one can obtain conviction about it no less from the arguments of providence: I mean from the honor or punishment owed to each human being by a just judgment, and from the end of human life. Many who have treated the resurrection have rested the whole case on the third argument alone, thinking that the resurrection takes place because of the judgment. This is clearly shown to be false by the fact that all human beings who die rise, but not all who rise are judged. If the justice of the judgment were the only cause of the resurrection, those who have done neither wrong nor right, that is, very young children, ought not to rise. But since all rise, including those who died in infancy, they themselves prove our point: the resurrection takes place, in the first place, not because of the judgment, but because of the purpose of the Creator and the nature of those created.

Although the cause seen in the creation of human beings is enough by itself to show that the resurrection follows upon dissolved bodies by natural sequence, it is perhaps right not to shrink from any of the points proposed, but, in keeping with what has been said, to point out the grounds that each of the following arguments provides, for those who cannot see it from the first alone. And first of all there is the nature of the human beings created, which leads to the same conclusion and gives equal conviction about the resurrection. The whole nature of human beings in general is constituted of an immortal soul and of the body fitted to it at its creation; and God did not assign such a creation, or life and the whole course of life, to the nature of the soul by itself or to the nature of the body separately, but to human beings composed of both, so that, being born and living from these, they may, when they have lived their lives, come to one common end. Since, then, the living being made of both is one, and it undergoes all the passions of the soul and all those of the body, and acts and does whatever requires the judgment of the senses or of reason, the whole chain of these must be referred to one end, so that everything, in every respect, may come together into one harmony and the same fellow-feeling: the human being's creation, the human being's nature, the human being's life, the human being's actions and passions, his course of life, and the end that befits his nature. If there is one harmony and fellow-feeling of the whole living being, both of what springs from the soul and of what is carried out through the body, then the end of all these must also be one. And there will truly be one end only if the same living being exists in its own constitution, the being whose end it is. It will be precisely the same living being only if all the things of which it consists as parts are the same. And they will be the same in their proper union only if the things that were dissolved are reunited to constitute the living being. So the constitution of the same human beings necessarily shows that the resurrection of dead and dissolved bodies must follow; for without it the same parts would not be united with one another according to nature, nor would the nature of the same human beings be reconstituted. Again, if intelligence and reason have been given to human beings to discern intelligible things, not only substances but also the goodness, wisdom, and justice of the Giver, then, since the things for whose sake rational judgment was given endure, the judgment given for them must also endure. But it cannot endure unless the nature that received it, and in which it exists, endures. And it is the human being, not the soul by itself, who received intelligence and reason. The human being, therefore, consisting of both, must endure forever. But he cannot endure unless he rises. For if there were no resurrection, the nature of human beings as human beings would not endure. And if the nature of human beings does not endure, then in vain has the soul been fitted to the needs of the body and its passions; in vain has the body been held back from obtaining what it craves, yielding to the reins of the soul and guided by its bridle; vain is intelligence, vain is wisdom, vain the observance of justice and the practice of every virtue, the making and ordering of laws, and, in a word, everything noble in human beings and for their sake, or rather the very creation and nature of human beings. But if vanity is banished altogether from all the works of God and all the gifts he gives, then the continuance of the body, according to its own nature, must last through eternity together with the endless life of the soul.

Let no one be surprised that we call “continuance” a life interrupted by death and corruption. He should consider that the word does not have a single meaning, nor does continuance have a single measure, since the things that continue do not have a single nature either. If each thing that continues has its continuance according to its own nature, then one would not find equal continuance even among beings that are purely incorruptible and immortal, since the substances of the higher beings are not on a level with those that differ from them by descending degrees; nor is it right to look for that uniform and unchangeable continuance among human beings. The immortal beings were made immortal from the beginning and continue without end by the will of their Maker alone; human beings have unchangeable continuance from their creation in respect of the soul, but in respect of the body they receive incorruption through change. This is what the doctrine of the resurrection means. With our eyes on it, we await the dissolution of the body, which follows upon a life of want and corruption, and after it we hope for continuance in incorruption. We neither put our death on a level with the death of irrational creatures, nor the continuance of human beings on a level with that of immortal beings, lest we unwittingly put human nature and life on a level with beings to whom they do not belong. It is not right, then, to be troubled if some unevenness is seen in the continuance of human beings; nor, because the separation of the soul and the dissolution of the parts and particles of the body interrupt a continuous life, should one despair of the resurrection. In sleep, too, the natural slackening of the senses and natural powers seems to interrupt conscious life, as people sleep at equal intervals of time and in a way come back to life; yet we do not refuse to call it the same life. For this reason, I think, some call sleep the brother of death: not tracing them to the same ancestors or fathers, but because the same states come upon the dead and the sleeping, in their rest and in perceiving nothing of what is present or happening, or rather not even their own existence and life. If, then, we do not refuse to call the life of human beings the same life, though it is full of such unevenness from birth to dissolution and interrupted by all that we have mentioned, neither should we despair of the life beyond dissolution, which brings the resurrection with it, even if it is interrupted for a time by the separation of the soul from the body.

For this is the nature of human beings: from the beginning, by the purpose of the Maker, unevenness has been allotted to it, and so it has an uneven life and continuance, interrupted now by sleep, now by death, and by the changes of each stage of life, in which what comes later does not clearly appear in what comes first. Who would have believed, had he not learned it from experience, that so many and such great powers lie stored in the seed, uniform and unformed as it is, or the variety of masses that form and solidify from it: bones, I mean, and sinews and cartilage, and muscles, flesh, entrails, and the other parts of the body? None of these can be seen in the seed while it is still moist; nor does anything of what comes to adults appear in infants, nor anything of those past their prime in adults, nor of the aged in them. Yet though some of these stages show the natural sequence and the changes that come upon human nature not at all, and others only dimly, all who are not blinded by wickedness or sloth in judging these matters know that first the seed must be sown; then, when it has been formed in every part and particle and what was conceived has come forth into the light, there follows growth in the first stage of life, and the maturity that results from growth; after maturity comes a decline of the natural powers until old age; and then, when the bodies are worn out, dissolution. In this case, then, although the seed does not have the life or form of human beings written in it, nor life its dissolution into the first elements, the sequence of natural events makes it credible to those who cannot believe it from what is visible. Much more, then, does reason, tracing out the truth from the natural sequence, confirm the resurrection, since reason is safer and stronger than experience for establishing the truth.

Of the arguments I set out for examination a little earlier that confirm the resurrection, all are of the same kind, springing from the same origin, which is the creation of the first human beings. But some draw their strength from that first origin itself, while others, which accompany the nature and life of human beings, derive their credibility from God's providence over us. The cause according to which and for which human beings were made, being joined to their nature, has its force from creation; but the argument from justice, by which God judges human beings who have lived well or badly, draws its force from their end. These arguments spring from creation too, but depend rather on providence. Having shown the first arguments as well as we can, it would be good to show our proposition also through the later ones, I mean through the honor or punishment owed to each human being by a just judgment, and through the end of human life; and of these to put first the one that naturally comes first, and to examine first the argument from the judgment. I will say only this much beforehand, out of concern for the proper starting point and order. Those who have accepted God as the Maker of this universe must ascribe to his wisdom and justice the guardianship and providence of all that has been made, if they wish to remain true to their own principles. And thinking this, they must hold that nothing on earth or in heaven is ungoverned or without providence, but know that the Maker's care extends equally to everything unseen and seen, small and great. All things that have been made need care from their Maker, each in its own way, according to its nature and for its purpose; though I think it would be idle ambition to go into detail now, or to try to distinguish or list what suits each nature. The human being, of whom we are now speaking, needs food because he is in want, succession because he is mortal, and justice because he is rational. If each of these is natural to the human being, and he needs food for life, succession for the continuance of the race, and justice so that food and succession may be lawful, then surely, since food and succession belong to the composite, justice too must belong to it; by the composite I mean the human being made of soul and body. Such a human being must be answerable for all that he has done, and receive for it honor or punishment. If a just judgment brings the penalty for deeds done upon the composite; if neither the soul alone should receive the wages of what was done with the body (for by itself the soul has no inclination to the offenses that concern bodily pleasures or food and care), nor the body alone (for by itself the body cannot discern law and justice), but the human being composed of both receives judgment for each of his deeds; and if reason finds that this does not happen in this life (for merit is not rewarded in the present life, since many atheists who practice every lawlessness and wickedness live to the end untouched by misfortune, while, on the contrary, those who have shown their lives to be tested in every virtue live in pain, in abuse, in false accusations, outrages, and every kind of suffering), nor after death (for the composite no longer exists, since the soul is separated from the body, and the body itself is scattered back into the elements from which it was put together, keeping nothing of its former shape or form, much less the memory of its deeds): then what remains is clear to everyone. As the apostle says, this corruptible and dissoluble body must put on incorruption, so that, when the dead have been made alive by the resurrection, and what was separated or even entirely dissolved has been reunited, each may justly receive what he did through the body, whether good or bad.

To those who acknowledge providence and have accepted the same principles as we, but then somehow fall away from their own premises, one might use arguments like these, and many more, if one wished to expand what has been said briefly and in passing. But with those who disagree about the first principles it might be well to lay down another starting point before these. We would join them in their doubts about their opinions and consider with them questions like this: has the life of human beings, and the whole course of life, been utterly and once for all neglected, and has a deep darkness been poured over the earth, hiding in ignorance and silence both human beings themselves and their deeds? Or is it far safer to hold that the Maker presides over his own works, overseeing all that exists or happens in any way, and judging deeds and counsels? If there were no judgment anywhere of what human beings have done, human beings would have no advantage over irrational creatures; rather, those who master their passions and care for piety and justice or any other virtue would fare worse than the beasts. The life of cattle would be best, virtue foolish, the threat of judgment a great joke, the indulgence of every pleasure the greatest good; and the common creed and single law of them all would be the one dear to the licentious and lustful: “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.” For the end of such a life is not even pleasure, as some think, but complete insensibility. But if the Maker of human beings has some care for his own works, and the distinction between those who have lived well and those who have lived badly is preserved somewhere, it is either in the present life, while those who have lived in virtue or in vice are still alive, or after death, when they are separated and dissolved. But in neither case can a just judgment be found to be preserved. For in the present life the good do not obtain the rewards of virtue, nor do the wicked receive the wages of vice. I pass over the point that, as long as the nature we now have is preserved, a mortal nature could not bear a penalty proportionate to offenses that are many or grave. The robber or ruler or tyrant who has unjustly killed thousands upon thousands could not pay the penalty for them by a single death. And one who holds no true opinion about God, but lives in every kind of insolence and blasphemy, despises divine things, overturns laws, outrages boys and women alike, razes cities unjustly, burns houses with their inhabitants, lays waste a country and destroys with it communities and peoples or even a whole nation: how could he, in a corruptible body, suffice for a penalty proportionate to these crimes, when death forestalls what he deserves and mortal nature is not enough for even one of his deeds? So a judgment according to desert is shown neither in the present life nor after death.

For either death is a complete extinction of life, the soul being dissolved and destroyed together with the body; or the soul remains by itself, undissolved, unscattered, incorruptible, while the body is corrupted and dissolved, keeping no memory of what it did and no perception of what the soul suffers on its account. If the life of human beings is completely extinguished, it will be plain that there is no care for human beings who are no longer alive, and no judgment of those who have lived in virtue or vice; and the lawless life will come rolling back, with the swarm of absurdities that follow it and the chief of all this lawlessness, atheism. But if the body is corrupted and each of the dissolved parts goes to its kindred element, while the soul remains by itself as incorruptible, not even so will there be room for a judgment of the soul, since justice would be absent. For it is not right to suppose that any judgment comes from God and at God's hands in which justice is absent. And justice is not present in the judgment if the one who did the justice or the lawlessness is not preserved; for the one who did each of the deeds in life on which judgment is passed was the human being, not the soul by itself. To sum up: this view will preserve justice in no case.

If good deeds are honored, the body will clearly be wronged: it shared with the soul the labors of what was striven for, but would not share in the honor for the good deeds; and while the soul often obtains pardon for some faults because of the body's want and need, the body itself would be shut out from any share in the good deeds for which it bore the labors of life. And if faults are judged, justice is not done to the soul if it alone pays the penalty for the wrongs it committed when the body troubled it and drew it toward its own desires and movements: sometimes by snatching and stealth, sometimes by a more violent pull, and at other times by the soul's going along with it out of kindness and care for the body's welfare. How is it not unjust for the soul to be judged by itself for things for which, by its own nature, it has no desire, movement, or impulse at all, such as lust, violence, greed, injustice, and the wrongs that go with them? Most such evils arise because human beings do not master the passions that trouble them, and they are troubled by the body's want and need and by their concern and care for the body. For these are the reason for all acquiring, and, before that, for all using; and for marriage too, and for all the actions of life, in and about which we see what is wrong and what is not. Where, then, is the justice in judging the soul alone for things in which the body is the first to be affected and draws the soul into fellow-feeling and partnership in the actions it needs? Desires and pleasures, and fears and griefs as well, in which everything immoderate is liable to judgment, have their movement from the body; how could the sins arising from them, and the punishments for these sins, fall on the soul alone, which by itself neither needs any such thing, nor desires it, nor fears or suffers anything like what a human being naturally suffers? Even if we suppose that the passions belong not to the body alone but to the human being, and rightly say so, since his life is one life made of both, we will surely not say that they belong to the soul, when we consider its own nature purely. If the soul needs no food whatever, it would never desire things it does not need at all in order to exist, nor would it be drawn toward anything it is naturally unfit to use; nor would it grieve at the lack of money or possessions, since none of these has anything to do with it. And if it is above corruption, it fears nothing whatever as destructive of itself: it does not fear famine, disease, maiming, disfigurement, fire, or sword, since it can suffer nothing harmful or painful from these, as neither bodies nor bodily powers touch it at all. If it is absurd to attach the passions to souls as though they were theirs alone, it is utterly unjust and unworthy of God's judgment to lay the sins arising from those passions, and the punishments for them, on souls alone.

Besides what has been said, how is it not absurd that virtue and vice cannot even be conceived of in the soul by itself (for we know that the virtues are the virtues of a human being, just as the opposing vice belongs not to a soul separated from the body and existing by itself), and yet that the honor or punishment for them should fall on the soul alone? How could one even conceive of courage or endurance in a soul alone, which has no fear of death, of wounds, maiming, loss, or outrage, or of the pains and suffering these bring? How could one conceive of self-control and temperance, when no desire draws the soul toward food or intercourse or the other pleasures and delights, and nothing else troubles it from within or provokes it from without? How prudence, when nothing lies before it to be done or not done, to be chosen or avoided, or rather when there is no movement at all in it and no natural impulse toward anything to be done? And how could justice toward one another, or toward any other being of the same or a different kind, be natural to souls? They have neither the means nor the way nor the manner of giving what is equal according to merit or proportion (apart from the honor due to God), nor any impulse or movement toward using what is their own or refraining from what belongs to others. For using natural things, or refraining from them, is seen in beings naturally made to use them; but the soul needs nothing and is not naturally fitted to use anything or any one thing; and so the so-called “each part doing its own work” cannot be found in a soul in that condition.

And this is the most unreasonable thing of all: that the laws God enacted are given to human beings, yet the penalty for what was done lawfully or unlawfully should be turned on souls alone. If the one who received the laws would justly also receive the penalty for breaking them, and it was the human being who received the laws, not the soul by itself, then it is the human being who must pay the penalty for sins, not the soul by itself. For God did not command souls to abstain from things that have nothing to do with them, such as adultery, murder, theft, robbery, dishonoring one's parents, and in general every desire that leads to injustice and harm to one's neighbors. “Honor your father and your mother” does not fit souls alone, since such names do not belong to them; souls do not beget souls and so claim the title of father or mother; human beings beget human beings. Nor could “You shall not commit adultery” ever properly be said or understood of souls, since there is no distinction of male and female in them, nor any aptitude for intercourse or desire for it. Where there is no such desire, intercourse is impossible; where there is no intercourse at all, there is no lawful intercourse either, that is, marriage; and where there is no lawful intercourse, there can be no unlawful desire for or intercourse with another man's wife, that is, adultery. Nor is the prohibition of theft or of coveting more than one's share fitting for souls. For they do not need the things that people, because of natural want or need, commonly steal or rob: gold or silver, an animal, or anything else suited to food, shelter, or use; for everything that the needy desire as useful is useless to an immortal nature. But let a fuller treatment of these things be left to those who wish to examine each point more seriously, or to contend more ambitiously with opponents. For us, what has just been said, and what confirms the resurrection in agreement with it, is enough, and it would not be timely to dwell longer on the same points. Our aim has not been to leave out nothing that could be said, but to show in summary to those gathered here what they ought to think about the resurrection, and to fit the arguments for it to the capacity of those present.

Having examined the points proposed to some extent, it remains to consider the argument from the end. It already appears in what has been said, and needs only enough attention and addition that we may not seem to leave unmentioned anything we said briefly, and so harm our subject or the division we made at the beginning. For these reasons, and for what will be added to them, it will be enough simply to point out that everything, whether constituted by nature or made by art, must have its own proper end. The common notion of all people teaches us this, and the things before our eyes bear witness to it. Do we not see that farmers have one end before them and physicians another, and again that the plants that grow from the earth have one end, and the animals nourished on it and born in a natural sequence another? If this is evident, and a natural end must follow natural or artificial powers and the activities that come from them, then the end of human beings too, since their nature is distinctive, must be set apart from what is common to the others. For it is not right to suppose the same end for beings that have no share in rational judgment and for those who act according to the innate law and reason, living an intelligent life and practicing justice. Freedom from pain, then, would not be their proper end, since this would belong also to beings wholly without sensation; nor the enjoyment of what nourishes or delights the body, and an abundance of pleasures; otherwise the life of cattle would have to rank first, and the life of virtue would be incomplete. That, I think, is the proper end of cattle and grazing beasts, not of human beings, who have an immortal soul and rational judgment.

Nor is the end the blessedness of the soul separated from the body. For we have not been considering the life or end of either of the parts of which a human being consists, but of the being composed of both. Such is every human being who has received this life, and his life must have some proper end. If the end belongs to the composite, and this end cannot be found while people are still alive in this life, for the reasons already given many times, nor when the soul is separated, since such a human being no longer exists once the body has been dissolved or even completely scattered, even if the soul remains by itself, then it is absolutely necessary that the end of human beings should appear in another constitution of the composite, of the same living being. And since this follows necessarily, there must by all means be a resurrection of bodies that have died or even been entirely dissolved, and the same human beings must be constituted again. For the law of nature sets the end not in a general way, nor for any human beings at random, but for those very people who lived the former life; and it is impossible for the same human beings to be constituted again unless the same bodies are given back to the same souls. And it is impossible for the same body to receive the same soul in any other way; it is possible only by the resurrection. When that takes place, the end suited to human nature follows as well. One would not be wrong to say that the end of an intelligent life and of rational judgment is to live forever, undistracted, with those things to which natural reason is chiefly and primarily fitted, and to rejoice unceasingly in the contemplation of the One who is and of his decrees; even if most human beings, being too passionately and violently attached to the things of this world, go on missing it. For the great number of those who fall short of the end proper to them does not cancel the lot common to all, since each is examined individually, and to each is measured out the honor or punishment for a life lived well or badly.