A will willingly share in your warfare. For it knows that the resurrection is being slandered, from the fact that it has often had the dead snatched away from it. That is why Paul also assigns a longing for the resurrection to the created order. For, he says, "the expectation of the creation waits for the revealing of the sons of God." Just as a city, upon receiving the precursors of a royal visit, readies its whole self for that presence, so too, the created order, having had the resurrection proclaimed to it like a queen, has organized its whole self for her presence. And do not marvel that a longing for the resurrection is instilled and taught in the created order. For, being a kind of nurse to men, it hastens to behold the promised kingdom, and the slowness of things to come does not dissolve the nurse's hope. B It always holds within itself the seeds of the resurrection, whose grains it shows living, confirming for us our hopes for the resurrection of the dead bodies through these small examples. For the grains of seed are buried in it, as we see, with the furrows becoming graves for what is sown; but the earth, having received the seeds, mimics the monuments, and causes the grain to putrefy just as the tomb does the body; and receiving it alive, it destroys it into death, and by clearly disintegrating the very heart of the grain, it renders it useless for the ants to eat. Possessing corruption, then, as a kind of conception, it carries in the putrefaction the dead offspring of the seeds, and becomes a mother of life to the grains, and the corruption is designated as the father of the birth of death. This is a new law of birth-pangs for the earth: unless the fetus becomes dead, it is not formed; if it lives, it is not fashioned. Hence, therefore, even ants bury cut grains in the earth, preventing by the cutting the sprouting that comes from putrefaction. For even the nature of ants had to bear witness to the earth, which brings forth seeds after corruption. And observe for me the wonder of these birth-pangs. Having received only the grain, it surrenders it to decay, but having decayed, it makes it sprout a hundredfold, fashioning the grain into various limbs. It places the stalk in the ears like bones, and weaves a thin tunic on the outside as if in place of skin; it binds the root below with certain cords as if with nerves and veins, and in place of nails C it adds to the grains the beards of the ears, which contend against the birds. How does all this spring from one corrupted grain? This is truly much more miraculous than the resurrection. For at that time it gives back the dead whom nature received; but now it brings forth many grains for one dead one unto regeneration. O the incurable madness of the Gentiles! They see the earth giving back to the farmer what it did not receive; yet they refuse to hope that it will give back to the Creator those whom they previously believed to be dead. For this reason, Paul also uses the example of seeds, although he has a clearer example in D the infants emerging from the mother's womb. For the infant, not yet existing as it is formed as if in a tomb in the womb, is wrapped in the swaddling clothes of nature, and is like one dead, bound round with burial shrouds. For while the face of the dead is more tightly enclosed, the mouth in the womb is silent, and the hands and feet in the belly are stretched out as if in a tomb. The mother's noble
A womb is a precise tomb for the embryos — a tomb, moreover, not free from the stench of the sepulchers. And yet the fetus, being fashioned in such a tomb, follows the bidding of Him who is fashioning it. Why, then, when the blessed Paul could have used such an example, did he remain silent about the formation into life within the tomb of the womb, and instead confirm the resurrection by the similitude of seeds? He knew the living seed forms the fetus in the womb, but he was looking for a visible image of certain dead who rise again, and for this reason he looked toward seeds. For grains, after their death and corruption from rotting, rise again, and become the most manifest symbol of the resurrection of the dead.
You do an injury to the soul under the pretext of defending it, and in the fight against the body you arm yourself B against the soul itself. For by not sharing the rewards of actions with the soul, you impose the punishment due to the flesh upon the soul alone, as if it alone had sinned. For if the rewards of labors and noble deeds belong to the soul alone, it is clear that the punishments for the things wherein man has sinned belong to it also. But see that you do not set body and soul in judgment against one another. For the body would rightly cry out against the soul, if it were to steal away the honors due to its good deeds; and the soul, in turn, against the body, if it saw that it alone were made to suffer the punishments owed to it. Nay rather, you incite both of them against the Judge: the body, because it is deprived of the retribution C it deserves; the soul, because it is forced to pay for things of which it is not conscious. "You have joined me, O Lord, to a body, though I am incorporeal, and you have entrusted earthly deeds not to me alone, yet you demand the accounting from me alone; and I pay the penalties for things that are the body's actions—drunkenness, fornication, gluttony. For where are these things the soul's own, as are, perhaps, envy or the impiety of heresy? For just as these are not of the body, so neither are the others of the soul, even though one is inept for both without the other." The body for its part would say other just things, and that, "I endured death for you, not the soul. For it is not mine to labor for your laws with fastings and vigils; D through my members was [achieved] virginity. How, therefore, is it not unjust, when the struggles are mine, for the soul to receive the crowns without me?" What is the resolution of their judgment? The reward is common, and the punishments are common, because their actions were also common. Even if in some things one part of the combination surpasses the other, one must acknowledge the pair that has been joined from the beginning to common labors, and know that it is destined to receive common crowns for the victory achieved, and to pay common punishments for the things in which it has sinned.
Of the same, from his Second Oration on the Passover.
The Resurrection is the chief point of the Lord’s providence; and the soul, being mindful of this chief point, and living in thanksgiving to the Benefactor, cannot be caught in the snares of the enemy. Ascend
A to the history of the ancients, and you will find a sketch of the resurrection. For the nature of beasts was created endowed with a soul, the soul being fashioned together with the body. But Adam was fashioned from clay without a soul, then the soul was formed by the breath—or rather, to speak more truly, it was superinduced. And the Creator immediately made a prelude to the resurrection of the dead. He did not fashion the first-formed man from solid matter, but worked the dust of the earth into a shape, persuading the unbeliever from the outset that, if dust is dead and motionless, it is easier for the soul to lead it to resurrection; and that which bears neither traces nor capacity for animation, He makes a participant in a life-bearing union. For He did not create the body to be consumed by corruption, but delivers it for a time to dissolution, purifying and healing the affliction of the vessel caused by sin; and finding it rotted by the mortality of sin, He dissolves it in the furnace of death, and when He has dissolved it, He reforms the rotted vessel anew. And do not marvel at this, as if the reforming of the dead were beyond reason. For B such is the art of the Maker in molding, that He fashions even the nature of water into statues within the womb. This seems to me more wonderful than the miracle of the resurrection itself. For there, a dead thing is wrought into mud from dust, and the potter reforms the vessel from the earth, acting in a way according to the arts we know; but here, a mere naked drop becomes mud, and a rational creature is composed from a drop. O the art of Him who carves statues out of water! And this is not the only marvel, that He carves water into an image of a living being, but that He also fashions the fluctuating seed within. For showers of blood, surging from every side, make the sown and unstable [seed] to drift; and though it is shipwrecked in such a storm and tempest, it is nevertheless perfected into a living statue. O Painter, who safely paints upon a shifting veil! For the blood lies beneath as a veil for the forming fetus. This also Solomon, marveling, said: "In the womb of my mother I was carved as flesh, congealed in blood over a period of ten months." For the female is set forth as if it were a painter's workshop, C while the male contributes the material of the colors. And there sits, as it were, a painter in the womb, embellishing a complex image from a single color. How did He adorn the pupil of the eye from muddy seed? How did He stitch together the nature of bones from a flowing substance? How did He harden the tension of the nerves from dissolved seed? How did He carve the veins as channels of blood? How did He fit the protection of the brain in the head with bones? How did the fetus, painted in a dark workshop, receive the proper placement of its limbs? But as if a ray of light were illuminating the womb, the Painter distributes to each part its proper place among the members; for the hidden painter of the fetuses is clothed in light as with a garment. Him whom David celebrates, saying: "You did not hide my bone from You, which You didst make in secret." Reflecting on this molding art from a drop, I do not hesitate to compare it to the formation from earth. For as often as I see the Creator fashioning a statue out of water, I believe He fashions statues out of earth all the better. For just as if someone D covers
A letters with water and draws lines, he will mold them far better in wax, so too, by painting and sculpting the members with flowing seed, He will far more easily paint and mold the figures of the members in earth. And He who, even before any merit of virtue, took such care of the body in the womb, how would He leave the dissolved earth without honor after the work of virtue? Remove the body, and you have slain creation; there will be no ship, for there are no hands; the sea will not be navigable, for the body is gone. The ten thousand kinds of animals will exist in vain, for there would be no sustenance from them, nor any other service of food. And where will the arts be, if the body does not exist? And the hours and the ordered changes of the seasons, and the ineffable wisdom of the celestial movement, what use would they provide if bodies did not exist? And how many other things might one consider? B Whence, then, should I find the body unworthy of future gifts, when I see so much honor granted to it by everything? Or do you suppose that God cannot find the body that the fish have eaten? And how should He, who knows the infinite thoughts of the soul as they surge, mingled and unconfused, not be able to discern the mingled nature of bodies? You are, in effect, making the Divinity inferior to our arts. For we, taking from the earth's sand—for example, glass, gold, copper, and silver—and putting them to the fire, separate out the dross and purify them, even though nothing of this was apparent in the nature of the stone; and wine mixed with water we again discern into its own nature, and restore both. But the power and wisdom of God, exceeding human art and intellect in infinite ways, and comprehending and containing the nature of the universe within Itself, preserves the varied composition C and mixture of the body pure in the storehouses of nature. For the nature of the body is not outside the nature found in creation, even if it flows and is dissolved through a thousand deaths. Therefore, it easily returns to its own proper form, and participates in the honors of which it was necessary for it to become a participant, since it also strove together with the soul.
Of the same, from the first discourse on the Ascension of Christ. The Proemium.
D The nature of creation is divided into heaven and earth; but the grace which today connects creation does not permit me to see this division. For who could henceforth say that heaven and earth are divided, when my nature reigns both above and below? But below, we are indeed still tyrannized by corruption; yet when we look up to heaven, nature lays aside corruption. For she sees above the root of the resurrection of those who are dead below. O gain emerging from loss! Having been cast down, we were raised on high; having been thrust out, we were brought back into heaven. Wounded inside paradise, we found the remedy outside it. Where, O pious one,
is the evil deed? The cross which you fixed for the pilot has become a rudder for our shipwrecked nature; and it steers those who are tempest-tossed toward the heavenly havens, and restores A them. Just as the eyes of the disciples were lifted from the earth toward heaven as the flesh was gradually raised on high, so too the host of incorporeal beings in heaven gazed from heaven toward heaven, as the nature of the body rose far above them, until it was received into the bosom of the Father. Secure hopes of the race, possessing a King akin to us in heaven, who shall also appear again to all with the same flesh.
The second homily of the same author on the same feast.
O religion more kingly than all kings! For the kingdoms that kings acquired by arms, this one showed that it was overthrowing without arms. What those who were slaughtering forbade, this one received after it had been slaughtered with applause, and set up trophies against the slaughterers by means of their own slayings. The branches of the Church had been pruned, and the fruit of faith progressed all the more, and brought forth an unfading flower. For the branches had sprouted from the Root that truly said: *I have overcome the world*; *I am the vine, you are the branches*. Stephen was cut off like a branch from the Church, and another branch of martyrs sprouted forth. James and Peter were lopped off: another martyr is born again; when he was cut off, the Root brought forth another fruitful branch. C Paul was harvested, and another cluster, Thomas, ripening in martyrdom, appeared; and the Root, harvested from every side by those harvestmen, brought forth a more abundant yield and a more lasting growth. And they who were cutting away perished, gradually withering away; but the Church, laden at all times with fruit, encompassed the ends of the earth with its shoots.
The third homily of the same author on the same feast.
Proemium.
The divine shower of goodness which began to be poured out upon men, today has been raised above measure, D and has obscured the great benefits once shown to our fathers. For the gifts before this present benefit were indeed illustrious and signs of the highest love: Adam made anew from virginal blood, the diseases of bodies put to flight, and demons driven out from souls. Thieves overcome the prince of thieves and triumph over him; resurrection succeeds death. But while these things until now are full of honor and splendor, the gift which we now celebrate does not suffer being subjected to the examination of comparison. And the love of the Creator toward us surpasses itself, and is adorned along with the victory; and that which conquered it, none the less than if each of these things brought back a crown of victory. The earth-born nature, leaving the earth—or rather, bearing it—is transferred into heaven. And this which we
call "Let us make man according to our image and likeness" A appears to be a work of reformation rather than of formation. The form assumed today is the archetype of immortality, and the beginning of our creation in the image of God is a shadowing forth and a type of this. For the ass was to speak; and that no one might be incredulous, the serpent had previously spoken. A virgin gives birth; that it might not appear strange to you, a barren woman gives birth first. Adam was to be born superior to death; and that you might not weary yourself in seeking reasons to believe, the first Adam received the sentence regarding immortality. You have Enoch, and truly also Elijah, shadowing forth the mystery of immortality. For the Creator holds these in the body, comforting the exiled nature, so that even after its banishment He might lead it back again to the immortal life. The mortality that entered through the father who stumbled required, for the undoing of the punishment, an innocent Son, whom nature had been accustomed to await beforehand through Enoch and Elijah. That at your will B a mortal does not die, Enoch and Elijah teach me, and through them there can arise hope of immortality for those who have not yet encountered death. But what expectation of resurrection could those who have not yet died afford to the dead? Yet if someone who has been raised from the dead reigns in heaven, he provides the certain gift of immortality to my entire race. For this reason God fashions in nature a face of immortality, and shows forth a leader of nature from nature, above nature. He who tasted of death is enthroned in heaven from the dead, so that nature, having looked up from below to the One reigning in heaven, might not hesitate at all regarding immortality, seeing the One born from it reigning eternally in the heavens. Who shall recount C the powers of the Lord? A nature reigns with the Godhead, which previously in Paradise could not even endure the hearing of the divine voice, but fled in fear and hid itself. O the goodness of God toward me! He does not remember the transgression, He does not call to mind the covenant we made for evil with the serpent, He does not reckon the ingratitude of men, He is not ashamed of the fall of nature; but, though it lay in the abysses of death, in the very secret chambers of impiety, He embraces it with the ineffable riches of His love, and having drawn it back from the recesses of Hades, the Creator, lifting up the creature together with His own Godhead, established it in the Father's bosom. For this reason Paul also cried out: He raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places.