Augustine in His Own Words
On the City of God 367 woman. This is proved by Christ's own words. He was asked by the Sadducees, who denied the resurrection: "At the resurrection, of which of the seven will she be the wife?" . . . Jesus answered: "You err because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God. For at the resurrection they will neither marry nor be given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven" (Mt 22:23–30). Notice that He did not say: The wife you ask about will no longer be a woman but a man. . . . What our Lord said was that in the resurrection there would be no marriage. He did not say that there would be no women.76
The Spiritual Body and Repairing
the Divided Self
Augustine often took his cues from St. Paul's letters, and in meditating on the resurrection, he routinely turned to 1 Cor 15. There Paul speaks of a "spiritual body." Augustine came to believe that this phrase did not mean that the resurrection was simply a matter of eternal souls. He came to use the phrase as a code word to describe God's repairing the divided self. We saw earlier how Augustine interpreted the punishment of original sin, that the punishment for disobedience of God was that our bodies and wills disobey us. At the final resurrection that split is repaired. From Sermon 242:
(8) Not without reason have those [risen] bodies been termed "spiritual." They have not been called "spiritual" because they will be spirits and not bodies. As a matter of fact, those bodies which we now possess are called "soul-infused" bodies, yet they are not souls, but bodies. Just as our bodies are now called "soul-infused," yet are not souls, so those [resurrected] bodies are called "spiritual" without being spirits, because they will be bodies. Why, then, is it called a "spiritual body," my dearly beloved, except because it will obey the direction of the spirit? Nothing in yourself will be at variance with yourself; nothing in yourself will rebel against yourself. No longer will there be that which the Apostle laments in the passage: "The flesh lusts against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh" (Gal 5:17). No longer will the words of the same Apostle be true: "I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind" (Rom 7:23). Those conflicts will not exist there; but peace, perfect peace, will be there. Wherever you wish to be, there you will be; but wherever you go, you will possess your God. You will always be with Him in whom your happiness consists.77
76. Civ. Dei 22.17 (CCL 48:835–36); trans. Walsh and Honan, FOTC 24:463–65. 77. S. 242.8 (PL 38:1142–43); trans. Muldowney, FOTC 38:270–71. On this, see Henri I. Marrou, The Resurrection and Saint Augustine's Theology of Human Values, Saint Augustine Lecture 1965 (Villanova: Villanova University Press, 1966).