Chapter 15. Proofs from Isaiah and Ezekiel for the Resurrection
Chapter 15
1. That he who created man in the beginning promised man a regeneration after he has been decomposed in the earth, Isaiah tells us as follows: The dead shall rise again, and those who are in the tombs shall rise, and those who are on the earth shall rejoice. For thy dew is health for them. And again: I will comfort you, and you shall be comforted in Jerusalem. You shall see, and your heart shall rejoice; your bones shall flourish like the grass, and the hand of the Lord shall be known to those who worship him.
Ezekiel puts it thus: The hand of the Lord was upon me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord and set me down in the midst of a valley; it was full of bones. And he led me round among them on every side; and behold there were very many upon the valley, and lo, they were very dry. And he said to me, “Son of man, do you think these bones can live?” And I answered: “O Lord God, thou knowest, thou who made them.” Again he said to me: Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: “O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones: Behold I will cause breath [Spirit] to enter. And I will lay sinews upon you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath [Spirit] in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the Lord.” So I prophesied as he had commanded me; and as I prophesied there was an earthquake. And the bones came together, each one to its joint. And as I looked, there were sinews on them, and the flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them; but there was no breath [Spirit] in them. And he said to me: “Prophesy to the breath, O Son of man, and say to the breath: ‘Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, breathe upon these slain, that they may live.’” So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them and they lived, and they stood up upon their feet, an exceedingly great host.
And again he said: Thus says the Lord God: “Behold, I will open your graves, and raise you from your graves. And I will bring you home into the land of Israel. And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, to bring my people back from the graves, and I will put my Spirit with you, and you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken and I will do it, says the Lord.” In this passage, therefore, the Creator gives life to our dead bodies, as can be seen, and promises them resurrection, and raises them from the graves and the tombs, and gives them imperishability. For their days will be as the tree of life, he says. The one God who made those things is manifested in this passage, and he is the good Father himself, who kindly grants life to those who do not have life of themselves.
2. That is why the Lord most clearly revealed to his disciples himself and the Father who each is, that they might not look for another God besides the one who formed man and gave him the breath of life, and that they might not reach such a height of insanity as to concoct another Father above the Creator. As a fact, he healed by word all the rest who happened to have an ailment due to their transgression; <and so> to these he said, See you are well. Sin no more, that nothing worse befall you. By that he reveals that ailments came upon men because of the sin of disobedience. But to him who was blind from birth he restored sight, not by word, but by action. He did this, not without aim or plan, but that he might manifest God’s hand (the Word) who fashioned man in the beginning. And so, when the disciples asked him the reason why the man was born blind, whether because of his own or his parents’ sin, he said, It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be made manifest in him. Now, God’s work is the handiwork, that is, man. For he made this by an action, as Scripture says, And God took clay from the earth, and formed man. Wherefore, the Lord spat on the ground, made clay and smeared it on the eyes, showing how the ancient handiwork had been made and manifesting God’s hand to them, that they could understand by what hand man was formed from clay. For what the Artificer, the Word, had omitted to form in the womb, this he completed in the open. He did this in order that God’s works might be made manifest in himself, and that we might no longer look for another hand by whom man was formed, or another Father. Instead we would know that the hand that had formed us in the beginning, and forms [us] in the womb, also in the last times sought us out who had been lost. He won back his own sheep that had been lost, and took it on his shoulders, and with joy restored it to the fold of life.
3. That the Word of God forms us in the womb he told Jeremiah: Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet unto the nations. Paul, in like manner, said: But when he who had set me apart from my mother’s womb was pleased [to reveal his love to me] in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles. Since, therefore, we are formed in the womb by the Word, it is this very same Word who re-formed the sight for the man who had been blind from birth. Thus he made manifest our hidden Fashioner, that the Word himself was made manifest to men. He also made known the ancient handiwork for Adam, both how he was made and by what hand he was fashioned, thus manifesting the whole by the part. For the Lord who formed the sight is one who formed the whole man, ministering to the Father’s will. Then, because man had transgressed in the handiwork that is Adam and needed the bath of regeneration, the Lord, after having smeared clay on his eyes, said to him, Go to the pool of Siloam, and wash; thus he restored both the handiwork and the regeneration through the bath at one and the same time. On this account, when he had washed, he came seeing, that he might recognize the Fashioner, and that man might learn of the Lord who gave him life.
4. And so all the Valentinians err when they say that man was not formed from this earth, but from a fluid and diffused matter. For it is manifest that the Lord fashioned man in the beginning from the same earth from which he formed his eyes. Really, it is not logical that the body and the eyes should have been formed from different substances; just as it is not logical for one [God] to have formed the body and another the eyes. No, the same one [the Word] who in the beginning fashioned Adam and to whom the Father said, Let us make man after our image and likeness, refashioned the sight for the blind man, who <descended> from Adam, when in the last times he manifested himself to men. For this reason Scripture points out what would happen in the future, when Adam had hidden himself because of the disobedience. It says that the Lord came, toward evening, and called out to him, and said, Where are you? This means that in the last times the same Word came to call man, thereby he reminded him of his deeds, in which he was living when he hid himself from God. For just as at that time God sought out Adam and spoke to him in the evening, so in the last times he sought out his offspring and visited him through the same voice.