FRAGMENTS FROM THE BOOKS "ON THE RESURRECTION"
A ...is evident from the things recorded in the Book of Joshua, son of Nun. Therefore, some of the fabrications which those brothers of “Ader,” as we have explained, devised, are near to the borders of the Gentiles. But you, my lord son, attend primarily to the reading of the Divine Scriptures; but attend, for we who read the things of God have need of much attention, so that we may not say or think anything about them too rashly; and attending to the reading of the divine things with a faithful anticipation that pleases God, knock at what is closed in them, and it shall be opened to you by the gatekeeper, of whom Jesus said: “To this man the gatekeeper opens.” And attending to the divine reading, seek rightly and with an unwavering faith in God for the meaning of the divine writings that is hidden from the many. But let it not be enough for you to knock and to seek; for prayer regarding the understanding of divine things is also most necessary. Exhorting to this, the Savior said not only: “Knock, and it shall be opened to you,” and: “Seek, and you shall find,” but also: “Ask, and it shall be given to you.” These things I have dared to do out of my fatherly love for you. Whether what I have dared is well or not, God would know, and His Christ, and he who is a partaker of the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Christ. May you also be a partaker, and may you always increase this participation, so that you may say not only: “We have become partakers of Christ,” but also: “partakers of God.”
MONITION CONCERNING THE BOOKS "ON THE RESURRECTION"
B Eusebius, in *Ecclesiastical History* (book VI, chapter 24), among the works which he narrates that Origen composed at Alexandria, lists two books *On the Resurrection*. They were written before the books *On First Principles*, since in the book *On First Principles* (chapter 10) they are praised in these words: “Concerning which (namely, the Resurrection), we have disputed more fully in other books which we wrote on the Resurrection, and we have shown what seemed to us concerning this. But even now, to repeat a few things from there does not seem absurd.” Jerome, in a certain book which is cited by Rufinus in his *Second Apology against Jerome*, while drawing up a list of Origen’s books, says not only that he wrote two books *On the Resurrection*, but also two other dialogues *On the Resurrection*. Since, therefore, it can be said in some sense that Origen wrote four books *On the Resurrection*, perhaps for that reason the same Jerome, in letter 38 (otherwise 61), cites the fourth book *On the Resurrection*. Against these books of Origen *On the Resurrection*, Methodius the bishop wrote an eminent dialogue *On the Resurrection*, according to the testimony of Jerome in his book *On Ecclesiastical Writers*, and of Maximus in his *Scholia* on chapter 7 of the third book of Dionysius’ *Ecclesiastical Hierarchy*. From this dialogue of Methodius, you have excellent fragments in Epiphanius, in his work on the heresy of the Origenists, and in Photius’ *Bibliotheca*. Books were also written on that question against Origen by Ammonius of Adrianople, but nothing of them remains today.
Huet, in *Origeniana* (book II, question 9), enumerates other writers by whom, if one is to believe them, Origen must have been held guilty of various and diametrically opposed crimes concerning the resurrection. Finally, his books *On the Resurrection* seemed to Jerome to teem with so many errors that, in letter 41 (otherwise 65), he exclaims: “Who of the Latins has ever dared to translate his books *On the Resurrection*, *On First Principles*, the *Stromata*, or his *Tomoi*? Who has wished to defame himself through an infamous work?”
Nevertheless, Pamphilus the martyr, in his *Apology for Origen*, in addition to other testimonies which he brought forth from his commentaries both on the prophet Isaiah and on Psalms 1, 15, and 18, so as to show that he held a thoroughly catholic view on the resurrection, also prefaced some places from his first book and from his second book *On the Resurrection* which follow this Monition, and which consist entirely with the catholic faith. To these the holy martyr could have added what is found written regarding the resurrection in book 4 *Against Celsus* (number 41), in these words: “If it is possible to change the qualities of the matter that is subject to all qualities; how is it not possible also for the flesh of Jesus, having changed its qualities, to have become such as it had to be, which would live in the ether and in the highest places of His, no longer having the properties of carnal weakness?” He therefore confesses the resurrection of the flesh in the Savior and, consequently, in us. Compare what he has in book 4 *Against Celsus* (number 57); book 5 (numbers 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23); book 6 (number 29); and book 1 *On First Principles* (chapter 10); and from an accurate collation of the individual places you shall confess that there is nothing in them which cannot be adapted to the catholic dogma on the resurrection, provided you except certain minor questions which Origen’s luxuriant talent, pursuing them too curiously, carries a little too far. See our animadversions in *Origeniana* (book II, question 9).
FROM THE FIRST BOOK OF ORIGEN ON THE RESURRECTION (17)
For how does it not seem absurd that this body, which for Christ’s sake endured scars, and...
FROM THE BOOKS OF ORIGEN ON THE RESURRECTION
...rit, along with the soul, endured the cruel torments of persecutions, and bore the punishments of prisons, chains, and scourges, and even the torture of fire, the biting of the sword, and, furthermore, the bloody gnashing of beasts, the gallows of the cross, and diverse kinds of penalties, shall he be defrauded of the rewards of such great contests? For if the soul alone, which did not alone contend, is crowned, and the vessel of its body, which served it with great labor, is rejected as unworthy of the time of rewards and victories, how does this not seem to be contrary to all reason? As if the flesh, having resisted natural vices and innate lust for the sake of Christ, and having attained virginity with great labor—a labor of continence which is surely either greater for the body than for the soul, or at least equal for both—were to be cast aside; and how should one come to the crown while the other is rejected? Which state of affairs, without a doubt, accuses God either of some injustice or of powerlessness.
34 FROM THE SECOND BOOK OF ORIGEN ON THE RESURRECTION (18)
We, however, say that after the corruption of the world, these very same human beings will exist, although not in the same state nor with the same passions. For they will not again be of the union of man and woman, but, for the sake of argument, that principle which contains Paul’s substance (and by Paul I mean here his bodily substance) remains safe. And when God chooses, according to those things which were spoken through the mystery of the trumpets at the last trumpet, to cause the dead to rise, through that very substantial principle which remains safe, those in whom that principle of bodily substance remained in their very bodies, which had fallen into the earth and by God’s will are raised again, are summoned from the earth’s dust from every place. And I think that the Apostle wished to assert this when he said in his first Epistle to the Corinthians. For after the assertion of the resurrection of the dead, having proposed to himself those things which could be objected by others regarding the resurrection of the dead, he says thus: B "But someone says: How are the dead raised? And with what body will they come? Fool, that which you sow is not brought to life, unless it first die. And that which you sow, you do not sow the body that is to be, but a naked grain, as, for example, of wheat, or of some others. God, however, gives it a body as He wills." For when he had most clearly shown that the dead rise, and it was certain that our Savior rose with the very body which He had taken from Mary, but it was not sufficiently clear how the others were to rise, or what sort of body they would have, he compares the resurrection to seeds which are sown in the earth, as for example a grain of wheat, which, when it has fallen into the earth, is corrupted; but the power of that principle which is implanted in its inner pith—that very power of the principle, having taken up the earth adjacent to it, or the moisture of water, but also the surrounding temperature of the air, and receiving also a sufficient tinder of heat—rises through the divine power into the body of the stalk or ear. And this is what he says: "That which you sow is not brought to life, unless it first die. And that which you sow, you do not sow the body that is to be." Therefore, this body of ours, which falls like seed into the earth, is compared to a grain of wheat.
And having asserted these things through such a sequence, he added a few things later: C But that all this promise of the resurrection of the dead from this body is what is left as dead, the Holy Scripture shows in many ways. But the very resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ also declares it, who is called the firstborn from the dead.
After these points had been discussed more broadly through certain matters, he added also these:
For just as every rational soul has more than those things which are said to exhibit the office merely of growing, or of being nourished, or of moving, so that principle which is in the human body has much more than that which is in other bodies, from the fact that even when the human body has been corrupted, it can exist again, preserved and guarded by the power of God until the time of its resurrection. Now that it is restored wherever it may be—that is, from every place in which it may have lain—John says thus in his Revelation: "And the sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and hell gave up their dead that were in them." For perhaps, as I think, the sea here is used for the whole moist element, hell for the air, and death for the earth. For since these have a kind of kinship one with another, Scripture calls our body the dust of death, or earth, or the body of death. Indeed, such as each one’s preparation in this life has been, such will be his resurrection. He who has lived more blessedly here will have his body shine with more divine splendor in the resurrection, and a suitable dwelling of blessed places will be granted to him; but to him who has consumed the time of the present life granted to him in malice, such a body will be given as can merely suffice and endure in punishments. And I think that D Paul the Apostle, wishing to show this difference, says: "There is one flesh of animals, another of birds, another of fish," and the other things which the Apostle enumerated. But just as it should not be thought that the sinner is about to receive the body of animals, or of birds, or of fish, so neither is it to be hoped that they who will rise in glory will receive the form of the sun or moon or stars; but it must be understood that these things were said by the Apostle for the sake of example, so that it may be signified by them that some, on account of their merits, will be more honorable and clearer, and also destined to inherit more blessed dwellings, while the status of others, on account of the wickedness of their deeds, will be most unworthy and abject, such as to be worthy of comparison even with dumb animals.