\ our Saviour bestowed His own single death; of the death of our outer man, since it is by
ja THE WORKS OF ST. AUGUSTIN. [Book IV. i Peta I eee ee ena eT Een ih As ee aT eee a TT Toe eo, ee fies the ungodly;* and it is increased and strengthened by good habits from day to day, as the inner man is renewed more and more. * But the body, being as it were the outward man, the longer this life lasts is so much the more corrupted, either by age or by disease, or by various afflictions, until it come to that last affliction which all call death. And its resurrection is delayed until the end; when also our justification itself shall be perfected ineffably. For then we shall be like Him, for we shall see Himas He is.3 But now, so ong as the corruptible body presseth down and to cause both our resurrections, He appointed beforehand and set forth in mystery and type His own one resurrection. For He was not a sinner or ungodly, that, as though dead in spirit, He should need to be renewed in the inner man, and to be recalled as it were to the life of righteousness by repentance; but being clothed in mortal flesh, and in that alone dying, in that alone rising again, in that alone did He an&wer to both for us; since in it was wrought a mystery as regards the inner man, and a type as regards the outer. For it was in a mystery as regards our inner man, so as to signify the death of our soul, that those words were uttered, not only in the Psalm, but also on the cross: he soul,# and human life upon earth is all emptation,' in His sight shall no man living e justified,® in comparison of the righteousness in which we shall be made equal with the angels, and of the glory which shall be revealed in us. But why mention more proofs respecting the difference between the death of the soul and the death of the body, when the Lord in one sentence of the Gospel has made either death easily distinguishable by any one from the other, where He says, '* Let the dead bury their dead''?? For burial was the fitting disposal of a dead body. But by those who were to bury it He meant those who were dead in soul by the impiety of unbelief, such, namely, as are awakened when it is said, '' Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light." ® And there is a death which the apostle denounces, saying of the widow,
'My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?''%3 To which words the apostle agrees, saying, '" Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not, serve sin;'' since by the crucifixion of the inner man are understood the pains of repentance, and a certain wholesome agony of self-control, by which death the death of ungodliness is destroyed, and in which death God has left us. And so the body of sin is destroyed through such a cross, that now we should not yield our members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin." Because, if even the inner man certainly is renewed day by day,' yet undoubtedly it is old before it is renewed. For that is done inwardly of which the same apostle speaks: '°' Put off the old man, and put on the new;'' which he goes on to explain by saying, '* Wherefore, putting away lying, speak every man truth. ''* But where is lying put away, unless inwardly, that he who speaketh the truth from his heart may inhabit the holy hill of God?" But the resurrection of the body of the Lord is shown to belong to the mystery of our Own inner resurrection, where, after He had risen, He says to the woman, ** Touch me not, for I am not yet ascended to my Father;''* with which mystery the apostle's words agree, where he says, "'If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God; set your thoughts on things above.''* For not to touch Christ, unless when He had ascended to the Father, means not to have thoughts * of Christ after a fleshly manner. Again, the death of the flesh of our Lord contains a type of the death of our outer man, since it is by such suffering most of all that He exhorts
she that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth."'9 Therefore the soul, which was before ungodly and is now godly, is said to have come alive again from the dead and to live, on account of the righteousness of faith. But the body is not only said to be about to die, on account of that departure of the soul which will be; but on account of the great infirmity of flesh and blood it is even said to be now dead, in a certain place in the Scriptures, namely, where the apostle says, that '' the body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is life because of righteousness.''* Now this life is wrought by faith, '*since the just shall live by faith," But what follows? '* But if the spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by His Spirit which dwelleth in you."' *
6. Therefore on this double death of ours \ our Saviour bestowed His own single death; x Rom. iv. 5. 2 2 Cor. iv. 16. 3 x John iii. 1. 4 Wisd. ix. 15. 5 Job. vii. 1. 6 Ps. cxliti. 2. 7 Matt. viii. 22. 8 Eph. v. 74. 10 Rom, viii. ro. 12 Rom, vill. 10, 11, 9: 'Tim. v. 6. Rom, 1. 17.
13 Ps, xxii. 1, and Matt, xxvii. 46. 14 Rom. vi. 6, 13. 15 2 Cor. iv. 16. 16 Eph. iv. 22-25. 17s PS4xXVartiate 13 Tohn xx. 17. 19 Sapite. 20 Col. iii. 1, 2. 21 Sapere.