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 labors 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(2) 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 to their bodies, why do they find that absurd which the Christian faith preaches,(3) 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?
CHAP.20.--THAT THE FLESH NOW RESTING IN PEACE SHALL BE RAISED TO APERFECTION 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,"(4) 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 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."(1)CHAP.21.--OF PARADISE, THAT IT CAN BE UNDERSTOOD IN A SPIRITUALSENSEWITHOUT
SACRIFICING THE HISTORICTRUTH OF THE NARRATIVE REGARDING THEREAL PLACE.
