Book I. Of the Divine Unity, and the Resurrection of the Flesh. (Cont.)
Part II. - Of the Resurrection of the Flesh.
The whole man, then, believes; the whole is washed;
Abstains from sin, or truly suffers wounds
For Christ’s name’s sake: he rises a true32 man,
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Death, truly vanquisht, shall be mute. But not
Part of the man, - his soul - her own part33 left
Behind, will win the palm which, labouring
And wrestling in the course, combinèdly
And simultaneously with flesh, she earns.
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Great crime it were for two in chains to bear
A weight, of whom the one were affluent
The other needy, and the wretched one
Be spurned, and guerdons to the happy one
Rendered. Not so the Just - fair Renderer
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Of wages - deals, both good and just, whom we
Believe Almighty: to the thankless kind,
Full is His will of pity. Nay, whate’er
He who hath greater mortal need34 doth need35
That, by advancement, to his comrade he
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May equalled be, that will the affluent
Bestow the rather unsolicited:
So are we bidden to believe, and not
Be willing to cast blame unlawfully
On the Lord in our teaching, as if He
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Were one to raise the soul, as having met
With ruin, and to set her free from death,
So that the granted faculty of life
Upon the ground of sole desert (because
She bravely acted), should abide with her;36
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While she who ever shared the common lot
Of toil, the flesh, should to the earth be left,
The prey of a perennial death. Has, then,
The soul pleased God by acts of fortitude?
By no means could she Him have pleased alone
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Without the flesh. Hath she borne penal bonds?37
The flesh sustained upon her limbs the bonds.
Contemned she death? But she hath left the flesh
Behind in death. Groaned she in pain? The flesh
Is slain and vanquisht by the wound. Repose
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Seeks she? The flesh, spilt by the sword in dust,
Is left behind to fishes, birds, decay,
And ashes; torn she is, unhappy one!
And broken; scatterèd, she melts away.
Hath she not earned to rise? for what could she
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Have e’er committed, lifeless and alone?
What so life-grudging38 cause impedes, or else
Forbids, the flesh to take God’s gifts, and live
Ever, conjoinèd with her comrade soul,
And see what she hath been, when formerly
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Converted into dust?39 After, renewed,
Bear she to God deservèd meeds of praise,
Not ignorant of herself, frail, mortal, sick.40
Contend ye as to what the living might41
146 Of the great God can do; who, good alike
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And potent, grudges life to none? Was this
Death’s captive?42 shall this perish vanquished,
Which the Lord hath with wondrous wisdom made,
And art? This by His virtue wonderful
Himself upraises; this our Leader’s self
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Recalls, and this with His own glory clothes.
God’s art and wisdom, then, our body shaped.
What can by these be made, how faileth it
To be by virtue reproduced?43 No cause
Can holy parent-love withstand; (lest else
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Ill’s cause44 should mightier prove than Power Supreme;),
That man even now saved by God’s gift, may learn45
(Mortal before, now robed in light immense,
Inviolable, wholly quickened,46 soul
And body) God, is virtue infinite
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In parent-love perennial, through His King
Christ, through whom opened is light’s way; and now, ,
Standing in new light, filled now with each gift,47
Glad with fair fruits of living Paradise,
May praise and laud Him to eternity48
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Rich in the wealth of the celestial hall.
FOOTNOTES
32 Oehler’s “versus” (= “changed the man rises”) is set aside for Migne’s “verus.” Indeed it is probably a misprint.
33 i.e., her own dwelling or “quarters,” - the body, to wit, if the reading “sua parte” be correct.
34 Egestas.
35 Eget.
36 I have ventured to alter the “et viventi” of Oehler and Migne into “ut vivendi,” which seems to improve the sense.
37 It seems to me that these ideas should all be expressed interrogatively, and I have therefore so expressed them in my text.
38 “Profound, and his life-grudging mind, entrapped.”
39 “Cernere quid fuerit conversa in pulvere quondam.”
Whether the meaning be that, as the soul will be able (as it should seem) to retrace all that she has experienced since she left the body, so the body, when revived, will be able as it were to look back upon all that has happened to her since the soul left her, - something after the manner in which Hamlet traces the imaginary vicissitudes of Caesar’s dust, - or whether there be some great error in the Latin, I leave the reader to judge.
40 i.e., apparently remembering that she was so before.
41 Vivida virtus.
42 I rather incline to read for “haec captiva fuit mortis,” “haec cartiva fuat mortis” =
“Is this
To be death’s thrall?”
“This” is, of course, the flesh.
43 For “Quod cupit his fieri, deest hoc virtute reduci,” I venture to read, “Quod capit,” etc., taking “capit” as = “capax est.” “By these,” of course, is by wisdom and art; and “virtue” = “power.”
44 i.e., the Evil One.
45 i.e., may learn to know.
46 Oehler’s “visus” seems to be a mistake for “vivus,” which is Migne’s reading; as in the fragment “De exsecrandis gentium diis,” we saw (sub. fin.) “videntem” to be a probable misprint for “viventem.” If, however, it is to be retained, it must mean “appearing” (i.e., in presence of God) “wholly,” in body as well as soul.
47 i.e., the double gift of a saved soul and a saved body.
48In aeternum.
Book II. Of the Harmony of the Old and New Laws.49
After the faith was broken by the dint
Of the foe’s breathing renegades,50 and swoln
With wiles the hidden pest51 emerged; with lies
Self-prompted, scornful of the Deity
5
That underlies the sense, he did his plagues
Concoct: skilled in guile’s path, he mixed his own
Words impious with the sayings of the saints,
And on the good seed sowed his wretched tares,
Thence willing that foul ruin’s every cause
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Should grow combined; to wit, that with more speed
His own iniquitous deeds he may assign
To God clandestinely, and may impale
On penalties such as his suasion led;
False with true veiling, turning rough with smooth,
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And, (masking his spear’s point with rosy wreaths,)
Slaying the unwary unforeseen with death
Supreme. His supreme wickedness is this:
That men, to such a depth of madness sunk!
Off-broken boughs!52 should into Parts divide
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The endlessly-dread Deity; Christ’s deeds
Sublime should follow with false praise, and blame
The former acts,53 God’s countless miracles,
Ne’er seen before, nor heard, nor in a heart
Conceived;54 and should so rashly frame in words
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The impermissible impiety
Of wishing by “wide dissimilitude
Of sense” to prove that the two Testaments
Sound adverse each to other, and the Lord’s
Oppose the prophets’ words; of drawing down
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All the Law’s cause to infamy; and eke
Of reprobating holy fathers’ life
Of old, whom into friendship, and to share
His gifts, God chose. Without beginning, one
Is, for its lesser part, accepted.55 Though
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Of one are four, of four one,56 yet to them
One part is pleasing, three they (in a word)
Reprobate: and they seize, in many ways,
On Paul as their own author; yet was he
Urged by a frenzied impulse of his own
40
To his last words:57 all whatsoe’er he spake
Of the old covenant58 seems hard to them,
147 Because, deservedly, “made gross in heart.” (Cf. Isa_6:9, Isa_6:10, with Act_28:17-29)
Weight apostolic, grace of beaming word,
Dazzles their mind, nor can they possibly
45
Discern the Spirit’s drift. Dull as they are,
Seek they congenial animals!
But ye
Who have not yet, (false deity your guide,
Reprobate in your very mind,59) to death’s
Inmost caves penetrated, learn there flows
50
A stream perennial from its fount, which feeds
A tree, (twice sixfold are the fruits, its grace!)
And into earth and to the orb’s four winds
Goes out: into so many parts doth flow
The fount’s one hue and savour.60 Thus, withal,
55
From apostolic word descends the Church,
Out of Christ’s womb, with glory of His Sire
All filled, to wash off filth, and vivify
Dead fates.61 The Gospel, four in number, one
In its diffusion ’mid the Gentiles, this,
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By faith elect accepted, Paul hands down
(Excellent doctor!) pure, without a crime;
And from it he forbade Galatian saints
To turn aside withal; whom “brethren false,”
(Urging them on to circumcise themselves,
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And follow “elements,” leaving behind
Their novel “freedom,”) to “a shadow old
Of things to be” were teaching to be slaves.
These were the causes which Paul had to write
To the Galatians: not that they took out
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One small part of the Gospel, and held that
For the whole bulk, leaving the greater part
Behind. And hence ’tis no words of a book,
But Christ Himself, Christ sent into the orb,
Who is the gospel, if ye will discern;
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Who from the Father came, sole Carrier
Of tidings good; whose glory vast completes
The early testimonies; by His work
Showing how great the orb’s Creator is:
Whose deeds, conjoined at the same time with words,
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Those faithful ones, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,
Recorded unalloyed (not speaking words
External), sanctioned by God’s Spirit, ’neath
So great a Master’s eye!
This paschal Lamb
Is hung, a victim, on the tree: Him Paul,
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Writing decrees to Corinth, with his torch,62
Hands down as slain, the future life and God
Promisèd to the fathers, whom before
He had attracted.
See what virtue, see
What power, the paschal image63 has; ye thus
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Will able be to see what power there is
In the true Passover.
Lest well-earned love
Should tempt the faithful sire and seer,64 to whom
His pledge and heir65 was dear, whom God by chance66
Had given him, to offer him to God
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(A mighty execution!), there is shown
To him a lamb entangled by the head
In thorns; a holy victim - holy blood
For blood - to God. From whose piacular death,
That to the wasted race67 it might be sign
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And pledge of safety, signed are with blood
Their posts and thresholds many:68 - aid immense! -
The flesh (a witness credible) is given
For food. The Jordan crossed, the land possessed,
Joshua by law kept passover with joy,
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And immolates a lamb; and the great kings
And holy prophets that were after him,
Not ignorant of the good promises
Of sure salvation; full of godly fear
The great Law to transgress, (that mass of types
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In image of the Supreme Virtue once
To come,) did celebrate in order due
The mirrorly-inspected passover.69
148 In short, if thou recur with rapid mind
To times primordial, thou wilt find results
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Too fatal following impious words. That man
Easily credulous, alas! and stripped
Of life’s own covering, might covered be
With skins, a lamb is hung: the wound slays sins,
Or death by blood effaces, or enshrouds
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Or cherishes the naked with its fleece.
Is sheep’s blood of more worth than human blood,
That, offered up for sins, it should quench wrath?
Or is a lamb (as if he were more dear!)
Of more worth than much people’s? aid immense!
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As safeguard of so great salvation, could
A lamb, if offered, have been price enough
For the redeemed? Nay: but Almighty God,
The heaven’s and earth’s Creator, infinite,70
Living, and perfect, and perennially
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Dwelling in light, is not appeased by these,
Nor joys in cattle’s blood. Slain be all flocks;
Be every herd upburnèd into smoke;
That expiatively ’t may pardon win
Of but one sin: in vain at so vile price
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Will the stained figure of the Lord - foul flesh -
Prepare, if wise, such honours:71 but the hope
And faith to mortals promisèd of old -
Great Reason’s counterpart72 - hath wrought to bring
These boons premeditated and prepared
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Erst by the Father’s passing parent-love;
That Christ should come to earth, and be a man!
Whom when John saw, baptism’s first opener, John,
Comrade of seers, apostle great, and sent
As sure forerunner, witness faithful; John,
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August in life, and marked with praise sublime,73
He shows, to such as sought of olden time
God’s very Paschal Lamb, that He is come
At last, the expiation of misdeed,
To undo many’s sins by His own blood,
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In place of reprobates the Proven One,
In place of vile the dear; in body, man;
And, in life, God: that He, as the slain Lamb,
Might us accept,74 and for us might outpour
Himself. Thus hath it pleased the Lord to spoil
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Proud death: thus wretched man will able be
To hope salvation. This slain paschal Lamb
Paul preaches: nor does a phantasmal shape
Of the sublime Lord bone consimilar
To Isaac’s silly sheep75) the passion bear,
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Wherefore He is called Lamb: but ’tis because,
As wool, He these renewed bodies clothes,
Giving to many covering, yet Himself
Never deficient. Thus does the Lord shroud
In His Sire’s virtue, those whom, disarrayed
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Of their own light, He by His death redeemed,
Virtue which ever is in Him. So, then,
The Shepherd who hath lost the sheep Himself
Re-seeks it. He, prepared to tread the strength
Of the vine, and its thorns, or to o’ercome
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The wolfs rage, and regain the cattle lost,
And brave to snatch them out, the Lion He
In sheepskin-guise, unasked presents Himself
To the contemned76 teeth, baffling by His garb
The robber’s bloody jaws.
Thus everywhere
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Christ seeks force-captured Adam; treads the path
Himself where death wrought ruin; permeates
All the old heroes’ monuments;77 inspects
Each one; the One of whom all types were full;
Begins e’en from the womb to expel the death
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Conceivèd simultaneously with seed
Of flesh within the bosom; purging all
Life’s stages with a silent wisdom; debts
Assuming;78 ready to cleanse all, and give
Their Maker back the many whom the one79
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Had scattered. And, because one direful man
Down-sunk in pit iniquitous did fall,
By dragon-subdued virgin’s80 suasion led;
Because he pleased her wittingly;81 because
He left his heavenly covering82 behind;
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149 Because the “tree” their nakedness did prove;
Because dark death coerced them: in like wise
Out of the self-same mass83 re-made returns,
Renewèd now, - the flower of flesh, and host
Of peace, - a flesh from espoused virgin born,
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Not of man’s seed; conjoined to its own
Artificer; without the debt of death.
These mandates of the Father through bright stars
An angel carries down, that angel-fame
The tidings may accredit; telling how
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“A virgin’s debts a virgin, flesh’s flesh,
Should pay.” Thus introduced, the Giant-Babe,
The Elder-Boy, the Stripling-Man, pursues
Death’s trail. Thereafter, when completed was
The ripe age of man’s strength, when man is wont
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To see the lives that were his fellows drop
By slow degrees away, and to be changed
In mien to wrinkles foul and limbs inert,
While blood forsakes his veins, his course he stayed,
And suffered not his fleshly garb to age.
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Upon what day or in what place did fall
Most famous Adam, or outstretched his hand
Rashly to touch the tree, on that same day,
Returning as the years revolve, within
The stadium of the “tree” the brave Athlete,
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’Countering, outstretched His hands, and, penalty
For praise pursuing,84 quite did vanquish death,
Because He left death of His own accord
Behind, disrobing Him of fleshly slough,
And of death’s dues; and to the “tree” affixed
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The serpent’s spoil - ”the world’s85 prince” vanquisht quite! -
Grand trophy of the renegades: for sign
Whereof had Moses hung the snake, that all,
Who had by many serpents stricken been,
Might gaze upon the dragon’s self, and see
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Him vanquisht and transfixt.
When, afterwards,
He reached the infernal region’s secret waves,
And, as a victor, by the light which aye
Attended Him, revealed His captive thrall,
And by His virtue thoroughly fulfilled
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The Father’s bidding, He Himself re-took
The body which, spontaneous, He had left.
This was the cause of death: this same was made
Salvation’s path: a messenger of guile
The former was; the latter messenger
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Of peace: a spouse her man86 did slay; a spouse
Did bear a lion:87 hurtful to her man88
A virgin89 proved; a man90 from virgin born
Proved victor: for a type whereof, while sleep
His91 body wrapped, out of his side is ta’en
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A woman,92 who is her lord’s93 rib; whom he,
Awaking, called “flesh from his flesh, and bones
From his own bones;” with a presaging mind
Speaking. Faith wondrous! Paul, deservèdly,
(Most certain author!) teaches Christ to be
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“The Second Adam from the heavens.”94 Truth,
Using her own examples, doth refulge;
Nor covets out of alien source to show
Her paces keen:95 this is a pauper’s work,
Needy of virtue of his own! Great Paul
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These mysteries - taught to him - did teach; to wit,
Discerning that in Christ thy glory is,
O Church! from His side, hanging on high “tree,”
His lifeless body’s “blood and humour” flowed.
The blood the woman96 was; the waters were
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The new gifts of the font:97 this is the Church,
True mother of a living people; flesh
New from Christ’s flesh, and from His bones a bone.
A spot there is called Golgotha, - of old
The fathers’ earlier tongue thus called its name, -
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“The skull-pan of a head:” here is earth’s midst;
Here victory’s sign; here, have our elders taught,
There was a great head98 found; here the first man,
150 We have been taught, was buried; here the Christ
Suffers; with sacred blood the earth99 grows moist.
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That the old Adam’s dust may able be,
Commingled with Christ’s blood, to be upraised
By dripping water’s virtue. The “one ewe”
That is, which, during Sabbath-hours, alive
The Shepherd did resolve that He would draw
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Out of th’ infernal pit. This was the cause
Why, on the Sabbaths, He was wont to cure
The prematurely dead limbs of all flesh;
Or perfected for sight the eyes of him
Blind from his birth - eyes which He had not erst
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Given; or, in presence of the multitude,
Called, during Sabbath-hours, one wholly dead
To life, e’en from the sepulchre.100 Himself
The new man’s Maker, the Repairer good
Of th’ old, supplying what did lack, or else
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Restoring what was lost. About to do -
When dawns “the holy day” - these works, for such
As hope in Him, in plenitude, (to keep
His plighted word,) He taught men thus His power
To do them.
What? If flesh dies, and no hope
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Is given of salvation, say, what grounds
Christ had to feign Himself a man, and heal
Men, or have care for flesh? If He recalls101
Some few, why shall He not withal recall
All? Can corruption’s power liquefy
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The body and undo it, and shall not
The virtue of the Lord be powerful
The undone to recall?
They, who believe
Their bodies are not loosed from death, do not
Believe the Lord, who wills to raise His own
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Works sunken; or else say they that the Good
Wills not, and that the Potent hath not power, -
Ignorant from how great a crime they suck
Their milk, in daring to set things infirm
Above the Strong.102 In the grain lurks the tree;
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And if this103 rot not, buried in the earth,
It yields not tree-graced fruits.104 Soon bound will be
The liquid waters: ’neath the whistling cold
They will become, and ever will be, stones,
Unless a mighty power, by leading on
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Soft-breathing warmth, undo them. The great bunch
Lurks in the tendril’s slender body: if
Thou seek it, it is not; when God doth will,
’Tis seen to be. On trees their leaves, on thorns
The rose, the seeds on plains, are dead and fail,
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And rise again, new living. For man’s use
These things doth God before his eyes recall
And form anew - man’s, for whose sake at first105
The wealthy One made all things bounteously.
All naked fall; with its own body each
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He clothes. Why man alone, on whom He showered
Such honours, should He not recall in all
His first perfection106 to Himself? man, whom
He set o’er all?
Flesh, then, and blood are said
To be not worthy of God’s realm, as if
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Paul spake of flesh materially. He
Indeed taught mighty truths; but hearts inane
Think he used carnal speech: for pristine deeds
He meant beneath the name of “flesh and blood;”
Remembering, heavenly home-slave that he is,
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His heavenly Master’s words; who gave the name
Of His own honour to men born from Him
Through water, and from His own Spirit poured
A pledge;107 that, by whose virtue men had been
Redeemed, His name of honour they withal
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Might, when renewed, receive. Because, then, He
Refused, on the old score, the heavenly realm
To peoples not yet from His fount re-born,
Still with their ancient sordid raiment clad -
These are “the dues of death” - saying that that
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Which human is must needs be born again, -
“What hath been born of flesh is flesh; and what
From Spirit, life;”108 and that the body, washed,
Changing with glory its old root’s new seeds,109
151 Is no more called “from flesh:” Paul follows this;
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Thus did he speak of “flesh.” In fine, he said (See 2Co_5:1 sqq.)
This frail garb with a robe must be o’erclad,
This mortal form be wholly coverèd;
Not that another body must be given,
But that the former one, dismantled,110 must
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Be with God’s kingdom wholly on all sides
Surrounded: “In the moment of a glance,”
He says, “it shall be changed:” as, on the blade,
Dispreads the red corn’s111 face, and changes ’neath
The sun’s glare its own hue; so the same flesh,
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From “the effulgent glory”112 borrowing,
Shall ever joy, and joying,113 shall lack death;
Exclaiming that “the body’s cruel foe
Is vanquisht quite; death, by the victory
Of the brave Christ, is swallowed;”114 praises high
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Bearing to God, unto the highest stars.
FOOTNOTES
49 I have so frequently had to construct my own text (by altering the reading or the punctuation of the Latin) in this book, that, for brevity’s sake, I must ask the reader to be content with this statement once for all, and not expect each case to be separately noted.
50 The “foe,” as before, is Satan; his “breathing instruments” are the men whom he uses (cf. Shakespeare’s “no breather” = no man, in the dialogue between Orland and Jacques, As you Like it, act iii. sc. 2); and they are called “renegades,” like the Evil One himself, because they have deserted from their allegiance to God in Christ.
51 Heresy.
52 Cf. Joh_15:2, Joh_15:4, Joh_15:5, Joh_15:6; Rom_11:17-20. The writer simply calls them “abruptos homines;” and he seems to mean excommunicated, like Marcion.
53 i.e., those recorded in the Old Testament.
54 I have followed Migne’s suggestion here, and transposed one line of the original. The reference seems to be to Isa_64:4, quoted in 1Co_2:9, where the Greek differs somewhat remarkably from the LXX.
55 Unless some line has dropped out here, the construction, harsh enough in my English, is yet harsher in the Latin. “Accipitur” has no subject of any kind, and one can only guess from what has gone before, and what follows, that it must mean “one Testament.”
56 Harsh still. It must refer to the four Gospels - the “coat without seam” - in their quadrate unity; Marcion receiving but one - St. Luke’s - and that without St. Luke’s name, and also in a mutilated and interpolated form.
57 This seems to be the sense. The allusion is to the fact that Marcion and his sect accepted but ten of St. Paul’s Epistles: leaving out entirely those to Timothy and Titus, and all the other books, except his one Gospel.
58 It seems to me that the reference here must evidently be to the Epistle to the Hebrews, which treats specially of the old covenant. If so, we have some indication as to the authorship, if not the date, of the book: for Tertullian himself, though he frequently cites the Epistle, appears to hesitate (to say the least) as to ascribing it to St. Paul.
59 The reference seems to be to Rom_1:28; comp., too, Tit_1:15, Tit_1:16.
60 The reference is to Gen_2:9-14.
61 Fata mortua. This extraordinary expression appears to mean “dead men;” men who, through Adam, are fated, so to speak, to die, and are under the sad fate of being “dead in trespasses and sins.” See Eph_2:1. As far as quantity is concerned, it might as well be “facta mortua,” “dead works,” such as we read of in Heb_6:1, Heb_9:14. It is true these works cannot strictly be said to be ever vivified; but a very similar inaccuracy seems to be committed by our author lower down in this same book.
62 I have followed Oehler’s “face” for the common “phase;” but what the meaning is I will not venture to decide. It may probably mean one of two things: (a) that Paul wrote by torchlight; (b) that the light which Paul holds forth in his life and writings, is a torch to show the Corinthians and others Christ.
63 i.e., the legal passover, “image” or type of “the true Passover,” Christ. See 1Co_5:6-9.
