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And now let us consider, with such ability as God may vouchsafe, how
the saints shall be employed when they are clothed in immortal and
spiritual bodies, and when the flesh shall live no longer in a fleshly
but a spiritual fashion. And indeed, to tell the truth, I am at a
loss to understand the nature of that employment, or, shall I rather
say, repose and ease, for it has never come within the range of my
bodily senses. And if I should speak of my mind or understanding,
what is our understanding in comparison of its excellence? For then
shall be that "peace of God which," as the apostle says, "passeth
all understanding,", that is to say, all human, and perhaps all
angelic understanding, but certainly not the divine. That it passeth
ours there is no doubt; but if it passeth that of the angels, and he
who says ""all understanding" seems to make no exception in their
favor,then we must understand him to mean thai neither we nor the
angels can understand, as God understands, the peace which God
Himself enjoys. Doubtless this passeth all understanding but His
own. But as we shall one day be made to participate, according to our
slender capacity, in His peace, both in ourselves, and with our
neighbor, and with God our chief good, in this respect the angels
understand the peace of God in their own measure, and men too, though
now far behind them, whatever spiritual advance they have made. For
we must remember how great a man he was who said, "We know in part,
and we prophesy in part, until that which is perfect is come;" and
"Now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face." Such
also is now the vision of the holy angels, who are also called our
angels, because we, being rescued out of the power of darkness, and
receiving the earnest of the Spirit, are translated into the kingdom
of Christ, and already begin to belong to those angels with whom we
shall enjoy that holy and most delightful city of God of which we have
now written so much. Thus, then, the angels of God are our angels,
as Christ is God's and also ours. They are God's, because they
have not abandoned Him; they are ours, because we are their
fellow-citizens. The Lord Jesus also said, "See that ye despise
not one of these little ones: for I say unto you, That in heaven
their angels do always see the face of my Father which is in heaven."
As, then, they see, so shall we also see; but not yet do we thus
see. Wherefore the apostle uses the words cited a little ago, "Now
we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face." This vision
is reserved as the reward of our faith; and of it the Apostle John
also says, "When He shall appear, we shall be like Him, for we
shall see Him as He is." "By "the face" of God we are to
understand His manifestation, and not a part of the body similar to
that which in our bodies we call by that name.
And so, when I am asked how the saints shall be employed in that
spiritual body, I do not say what I see, but I say what I
believe, according to that which I read in the psalm, "I believed,
therefore have I spoken." I say, then, they shall in the body see
God; but whether they shall see Him by means of the body, as now we
see the sun, moon, stars, sea, earth, and all that is in it, that
is a difficult question. For it is hard to say that the saints shall
then have such bodies that they shall not be able to shut and open their
eyes as they please; while it is harder still to say that every one who
shuts his eyes shall lose the vision of God. For if the prophet
Elisha, though at a distance, saw his servant Gehazi, who thought
that his wickedness would escape his master's observation and accepted
gifts from Naaman the Syrian, whom the prophet had cleansed from his
foul leprosy, how much more shall the saints in the spiritual body see
all things, not only though their eyes be shut, but though they
themselves be at a great distance? For then shall be "that which is
perfect," of which the apostle says," We know in part, and we
prophesy in part; but when that which is perfect is come, then that
which is in part shall be done away." Then, that he may illustrate
as well as possible, by a simile, how superior the future life is to
the life now lived, not only by ordinary men, but even by the foremost
of the saints, he says, "When I was a child, I understood as a
child, I spake as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became
a man, I put away childish things. Now we see through a glass,
darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I
know even as also I am known." If, then, even in this life, in
which the prophetic power of remarkable men is no more worthy to be
compared to the vision of the future life than childhood is to manhood,
Elisha, though distant from his servant, saw him accepting gifts,
shall we say that when that which is perfect is come, and the
corruptible body no longer oppresses the soul, but is incorruptible and
offers no impediment to it, the saints shall need bodily eyes to see,
though Elisha had no need of them to see his servant? For, following
the Septuagint version, these are the prophet's words: "Did not my
heart go with thee, when the man came out of his chariot to meet thee,
and thou tookedst his gifts?" Or, as the presbyter Jerome rendered
it from the Hebrew, "Was not my heart present when the man turned
from his chariot to meet thee?" The prophet said that he saw this
with his heart, miraculously aided by God, as no one can doubt. But
how much more abundantly shall the saints enjoy this gift when God
shall be all in all? Nevertheless the bodily eyes also shall have
their office and their place, and shall be used by the spirit through
the spiritual body. For the prophet did not forego the use of his eyes
for seeing what was before them, though he did not need them to see his
absent servant, and though he could have seen these present objects in
spirit, and with his eyes shut, as he saw things far distant in a
place where he himself was not. Far be it, then, from us to say that
in the life to come the saints shall not see God when their eyes are
shut, since they shall always see Him with the spirit.
But the question arises, whether, when their eyes are open, they
shall see Him with the bodily eye? If the eyes of the spiritual body
have no more power than the eyes which we now possess, manifestly God
cannot be seen with them. They must be of a very different power if
they can look upon that incorporeal nature which is not contained in any
place, but is all in every place. For though we say that God is in
heaven and on earth, as He, Himself says by the prophet, "I fill
heaven and earth," we do not mean that there is one part of God in
heaven and another part on earth; but He is all in heaven and all on
earth, not at alternate intervals of time, but both at once, as no
bodily nature can be. The eye, then, shall have a vastly superior
power, the power not of keen sight, such as is ascribed to serpents or
eagles, for however keenly these animals see, they can discern nothing
but bodily substances, but the power of seeing things incorporeal.
Possibly it was this great power of vision which was temporarily
communicated to the eyes of the holy Job while yet in this mortal
body, when he says to God, "I have heard of Thee by the hearing of
the ear; but now mine eye seeth Thee: wherefore I abhor myself, and
melt away, and count myself dust and ashes;" although there is no
reason why we should not understand this of the eve of the heart, of
which the apostle says, "Having the eyes of your heart
illuminated." But that God shall be seen with these eyes no
Christian doubts who believingly accepts what our God and Master
says, "Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God."
But whether in the future life God shall also be seen with the bodily
eye, this is now our question.
The expression of Scripture, "And all flesh shall see the salvation
of God," may without difficulty be understood as if it were said,
"And every man shall see the Christ of God." And He certainly
was seen in the body, and shall be seen in the body when He judges
quick and dead. And that Christ is the salvation of God, many other
passages of Scripture witness, but especially the words of the
venerable Simeon, who, when he had received into his hands the infant
Christ, said, "Now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace,
according to Thy word: for mine eyes have seen Thy salvation." As
for the words of the above-mentioned Job, as they are found in the
Hebrew manuscripts, "And in my flesh I shall see God," no doubt
they were a prophecy of the resurrection of the flesh; yet he does not
say "by the flesh." And indeed, if he had said this, it would
still be possible that Christ was meant by "God;" for Christ shall
be seen by the flesh in the flesh. But even understanding it of God,
it is only equivalent to saying, I shall be in tile flesh when I see
God. Then the apostle's expression, "face to face, does not
oblige us to believe that we shall see God by the bodily face in which
are the eyes of the body, for we shall see Him without intermission in
spirit. And if the apostle had not referred to the face of the inner
man, he would not have said, "But we, with unveiled face beholding
as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same
image, from glory to glory, as by the spirit of the Lord." In the
same sense we understand what the Psalmist sings, "Draw near unto
Him, and be enlightened; and your faces shall not be ashamed." For
it is by faith we draw near to God, and faith is an act of the
spirit, not of the body. But as we do not know what degree of
perfection the spiritual body shall attain, for here we speak of a
matter of which we have no experience, and upon which the authority of
Scripture does not definitely pronounce, it is necessary that the
words of the Book of Wisdom be illustrated in us: "The thoughts of
mortal men are timid, and our fore-castings uncertain."
For if that reasoning of the philosophers, by which they attempt to
make out that intelligible or mental objects are so seen by the mind,
and sensible or bodily objects so seen by the body, that the former
cannot be discerned by the mind through the body, nor the latter by the
mind itself without the body, if this reasoning were trustworthy, then
it would certainly follow that God could not be seen by the eye even of
a spiritual body. But this reasoning is exploded both by true reason
and by prophetic authority. For who is so little acquainted with the
truth as to say that God has no cognisance of sensible objects? Has
He therefore a body, the eyes of which give Him this knowledge?
Moreover, what we have just been relating of the prophet Elisha,
does this not sufficiently show that bodily things can be discerned by
the spirit without the help of the body? For when that servant
received the gifts, certainly this was a bodily or material
transaction, yet the prophet saw it not by the body, but by the
spirit. As, therefore, it is agreed that bodies are seen by the
spirit, what if the power of the spiritual body shall be so great that
spirit also is seen by the body? For God is a spirit. Besides,
each man recognizes his own life, that life by which he now lives in
the body, and which vivifies these earthly members and causes them to
grow, by an interior sense, and not by his bodily eye; but the life
of other men, though it is invisible, he sees with the bodily eye.
For how do we distinguish between living and dead bodies, except by
seeing at once both the body and the life which we cannot see save by
the eye? But a life without a body we cannot see thus. Wherefore it
may very well be, and it is thoroughly credible, that we shall in the
future world see the material forms of the new heavens and the new earth
in such a way that we shall most distinctly recognize God everywhere
present and governing all things, material as well as spiritual, and
shall see Him, not as now we understand the invisible things of God,
by the things which are made, and see Him darkly, as in a mirror,
and in part, and rather by faith than by bodily vision of material
appearances, but by means of the bodies we shall wear and which we
shall see wherever we turn our eyes. As we do not believe, but see
that the living men around us who are exercising vital functions are
alive, though we cannot see their life without their bodies, but see
it most distinctly by means of their bodies, so, wherever we shall
look with those spiritual eyes of our future bodies, we shall then,
too, by means of bodily substances behold God, though a spirit,
ruling all things. Either, therefore, the eyes shall possess some
quality similar to that of the mind, by which they may be able to
discern spiritual things, and among these God, a supposition for
which it is difficult or even impossible to find any support in
Scripture, or, which is more easy to comprehend, God will be so
known by us, and shall be so much before us, that we shall see Him by
the spirit in ourselves, in one another, in Himself, in the new
heavens and the new earth, in every created thing which shall then
exist; and also by the body we shall see Him in every body which the
keen vision of the eye of the spiritual body shall reach. Our thoughts
also shall be visible to all, for then shall be fulfilled the words of
the apostle, "Judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come,
who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will
make manifest the thoughts of the heart, and then shall every one have
praise of God."
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