5 The Resurrection
(26)
itting indeed, then, and wholly consonant was the death on the cross for
us; and we can see how reasonable it was, and why it is that the salvation of the world could be accomplished in no
other way. Even on the cross He did not hide Himself from sight; rather, He made all creation witness to the
presence of its Maker. Then, having once let it be seen that it was truly dead, He did not allow that temple of His
body to linger long, but forthwith on the third day raised it up, impassable and incorruptible, the pledge and token of
His victory.
It was, of course, within His power thus to have raised His body and displayed it as alive directly after death.
But the all-wise Savior did not do this, lest some should deny that it had really or completely died. Besides this, had
the interval between His death and resurrection been but two days, the glory of His incorruption might not have
appeared. He waited one whole day to show that His body was really dead, and then on the third day showed it
incorruptible to all. The interval was no longer, lest people should have forgotten about it and grown doubtful
whether it were in truth the same body. No, while the affair was still ringing in their ears and their eyes were still
straining and their minds in turmoil, and while those who had put Him to death were still on the spot and themselves
witnessing to the fact of it, the Son of God after three days showed His once dead body immortal and incorruptible;
and it was evident to all that it was from no natural weakness that the body which the Word indwelt had died, but in
order that in it by the Savior's power death might be done away.
(27) A very strong proof of this destruction of death and its conquest by the cross is supplied by a present fact,
namely this. All the disciples of Christ despise death; they take the offensive against it and, instead of fearing it, by
the sign of the cross and by faith in Christ trample on it as on something dead. Before the divine sojourn of the
Savior, even the holiest of men were afraid of death, and mourned the dead as those who perish. But now that the
Savior has raised His body, death is no longer terrible, but all those who believe in Christ tread it underfoot as
nothing, and prefer to die rather than to deny their faith in Christ, knowing full well that when they die they do not
perish, but live indeed, and become incorruptible through the resurrection. But that devil who of old wickedly exulted
in death, now that the pains of death are loosed, he alone it is who remains truly dead. There is proof of this too; for
men who, before they believe in Christ, think death horrible and are afraid of it, once they are converted despise it
so completely that they go eagerly to meet it, and themselves become witnesses of the Savior's resurrection from it.
Even children hasten thus to die, and not men only, but women train themselves by bodily discipline to meet it. So
weak has death become that even women, who used to be taken in by it, mock at it now as a dead thing robbed of
all its strength. Death has become like a tyrant who has been completely conquered by the legitimate monarch;
bound hand and foot the passers-by sneer at him, hitting him and abusing him, no longer afraid of his cruelty and
rage, because of the king who has conquered him. So has death been conquered and branded for what it is by the
Savior on the cross. It is bound hand and foot, all who are in Christ trample it as they pass and as witnesses to Him
deride it, scoffing and saying, "O Death, where is thy victory? O Grave, where is thy sting?[1]
(28) Is this a slender proof of the impotence of death, do you think? Or is it a slight indication of the Savior's
victory over it, when boys and young girls who are in Christ look beyond this present life and train themselves to die?
Every one is by nature afraid of death and of bodily dissolution; the marvel of marvels is that he who is enfolded in
the faith of the cross despises this natural fear and for the sake of the cross is no longer cowardly in face of it. The
natural property of fire is to burn. Suppose, then, that there was a substance such as the Indian asbestos is said to be,
which had no fear of being burnt, but rather displayed the impotence of the fire by proving itself unburnable. If
anyone doubted the truth of this, all he need do would be to wrap himself up in the substance in question and then
touch the fire. Or, again, to revert to our former figure, if anyone wanted to see the tyrant bound and helpless, who
used to be such a terror to others, he could do so simply by going into the country of the tyrant's conqueror. Even
so, if anyone still doubts the conquest of death, after so many proofs and so many martyrdoms in Christ and such
daily scorn of death by His truest servants, he certainly does well to marvel at so great a thing, but he must not be
obstinate in unbelief and disregard of plain facts. No, he must be like the man who wants to prove the property of
the asbestos, and like him who enters the conqueror's dominions to see the tyrant bound. He must embrace the faith
of Christ, this disbeliever in the conquest of death, and come to His teaching. Then he will see how impotent death is
and how completely conquered. Indeed, there have been many former unbelievers and deriders who, after they
became believers, so scorned death as even themselves to become martyrs for Christ's sake.
(29) If, then, it is by the sign of the cross and by faith in Christ that death is trampled underfoot, it is clear that
it is Christ Himself and none other Who is the Archvictor over death and has robbed it of its power. Death used to
be strong and terrible, but now, since the sojourn of the Savior and the death and resurrection of His body, it is
despised; and obviously it is by the very Christ Who mounted on the cross that it has been destroyed and vanquished
finally. When the sun rises after the night and the whole world is lit up by it, nobody doubts that it is the sun which
has thus shed its light everywhere and driven away the dark. Equally clear is it, since this utter scorning and
trampling down of death has ensued upon the Savior's manifestation in the body and His death on the cross, that it
is He Himself Who brought death to nought and daily raises monuments to His victory in His own disciples. How
can you think otherwise, when you see men naturally weak hastening to death, unafraid at the prospect of corruption,
fearless of the descent into Hades, even indeed with eager soul provoking it, not shrinking from tortures, but
preferring thus to rush on death for Christ's sake, rather than to remain in this present life? If you see with your own
eyes men and women and children, even, thus welcoming death for the sake of Christ's religion, how can you be so
utterly silly and incredulous and maimed in your mind as not to realize that Christ, to Whom these all bear witness,
Himself gives the victory to each, making death completely powerless for those who hold His faith and bear the sign
of the cross? No one in his senses doubts that a snake is dead when he sees it trampled underfoot, especially when
he knows how savage it used to be; nor, if he sees boys making fun of a lion, does he doubt that the brute is either
dead or completely bereft of strength. These things can be seen with our own eyes, and it is the same with the
conquest of death. Doubt no longer, then, when you see death mocked and scorned by those who believe in Christ,
that by Christ death was destroyed, and the corruption that goes with it resolved and brought to end.
(30) What we have said is, indeed, no small proof of the destruction of death and of the fact that the cross of
the Lord is the monument to His victory. But the resurrection of the body to immortality, which results henceforward
from the work of Christ, the common Savior and true Life of all, is more effectively proved by facts than by words to
those whose mental vision is sound. For, if, as we have shown, death was destroyed and everybody tramples on it
because of Christ, how much more did He Himself first trample and destroy it in His own body! Death having been
slain by Him, then, what other issue could there be than the resurrection of His body and its open demonstration as
the monument of His victory? How could the destruction of death have been manifested at all, had not the Lord's
body been raised? But if anyone finds even this insufficient, let him find proof of what has been said in present facts.
Dead men cannot take effective action; their power of influence on others lasts only till the grave. Deeds and actions
that energize others belong only to the living. Well, then, look at the facts in this case. The Savior is working mightily
among men, every day He is invisibly persuading numbers of people all over the world, both within and beyond the
Greek-speaking world, to accept His faith and be obedient to His teaching. Can anyone, in face of this, still doubt
that He has risen and lives, or rather that He is Himself the Life? Does a dead man prick the consciences of men, so
that they throw all the traditions of their fathers to the winds and bow down before the teaching of Christ? If He is
no longer active in the world, as He must needs be if He is dead, how is it that He makes the living to cease from
their activities, the adulterer from his adultery, the murderer from murdering, the unjust from avarice, while the
profane and godless man becomes religious? If He did not rise, but is still dead, how is it that He routs and
persecutes and overthrows the false gods, whom unbelievers think to be alive, and the evil spirits whom they
worship? For where Christ is named, idolatry is destroyed and the fraud of evil spirits is exposed; indeed, no such
spirit can endure that Name, but takes to flight on sound of it. This is the work of One Who lives, not of one dead;
and, more than that, it is the work of God. It would be absurd to say that the evil spirits whom He drives out and the
idols which He destroys are alive, but that He Who drives out and destroys, and Whom they themselves acknowledge
to be Son of God, is dead.
(31) In a word, then, those who disbelieve in the resurrection have no support in facts, if their gods and evil
spirits do not drive away the supposedly dead Christ. Rather, it is He Who convicts them of being dead. We are
agreed that a dead person can do nothing: yet the Savior works mightily every day, drawing men to religion,
persuading them to virtue, teaching them about immortality, quickening their thirst for heavenly things, revealing the
knowledge of the Father, inspiring strength in face of death, manifesting Himself to each, and displacing the
irreligion of idols; while the gods and evil spirits of the unbelievers can do none of these things, but rather become
dead at Christ's presence, all their ostentation barren and void. By the sign of the cross, on the contrary, all magic is
stayed, all sorcery confounded, all the idols are abandoned and deserted, and all senseless pleasure ceases, as the eye
of faith looks up from earth to heaven. Whom, then, are we to call dead? Shall we call Christ dead, Who effects all
this? But the dead have not the faculty to effect anything. Or shall we call death dead, which effects nothing
whatever, but lies as lifeless and ineffective as are the evil spirits and the idols? The Son of God, "living and
effective,[2] is active every day and effects the salvation of all; but
death is daily proved to be stripped of all its strength, and it is the idols and the evil spirits who are dead, not He.
No room for doubt remains, therefore, concerning the resurrection of His body.
Indeed, it would seem that he who disbelieves this bodily rising of the Lord is ignorant of the power of the
Word and Wisdom of God. If He took a body to Himself at all, and made it His own in pursuance of His purpose, as
we have shown that He did, what was the Lord to do with it, and what was ultimately to become of that body upon
which the Word had descended? Mortal and offered to death on behalf of all as it was, it could not but die; indeed,
it was for that very purpose that the Savior had prepared it for Himself. But on the other hand it could not remain
dead, because it had become the very temple of Life. It therefore died, as mortal, but lived again because of the Life
within it; and its resurrection is made known through its works.
(32) It is, indeed, in accordance with the nature of the invisible God that He should be thus known through His
works; and those who doubt the Lord's resurrection because they do not now behold Him with their eyes, might as
well deny the very laws of nature. They have ground for disbelief when works are lacking; but when the works cry out
and prove the fact so clearly, why do they deliberately deny the risen life so manifestly shown? Even if their mental
faculties are defective, surely their eyes can give them irrefragable proof of the power and Godhead of Christ. A
blind man cannot see the sun, but he knows that it is above the earth from the warmth which it affords; similarly, let
those who are still in the blindness of unbelief recognize the Godhead of Christ and the resurrection which He has
brought about through His manifested power in others. Obviously He would not be expelling evil spirits and
despoiling idols, if He were dead, for the evil spirits would not obey one who was dead. If, on the other hand, the
very naming of Him drives them forth, He clearly is not dead; and the more so that the spirits, who perceive things
unseen by men, would know if He were so and would refuse to obey Him. But, as a matter of fact, what profane
persons doubt, the evil spirits know—namely that He is God; and for that reason they flee from Him and fall at His
feet, crying out even as they cried when He was in the body, "We know Thee Who Thou art, the Holy One of God,"
and, "Ah, what have I in common with Thee, Thou Son of God? I implore Thee, torment me not."[3]
Both from the confession of the evil spirits and from the daily witness of His works, it is manifest, then, and let
none presume to doubt it, that the Savior has raised His own body, and that He is very Son of God, having His being
from God as from a Father, Whose Word and Wisdom and Whose Power He is. He it is Who in these latter days
assumed a body for the salvation of us all, and taught the world concerning the Father. He it is Who has destroyed
death and freely graced us all with incorruption through the promise of the resurrection, having raised His own body
as its first-fruits, and displayed it by the sign of the cross as the monument to His victory over death and its
corruption.
Chapter 5 Notes
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