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At present let us go on, as we have begun, to give some explanation
regarding the bodies of our first parents. I say then, that, except
as the just consequence of sin, they would not have been subjected even
to this death, which is good to the good, this death, which is not
exclusively known and believed in by a few, but is known to all, by
which soul and body are separated, and by which the body of an animal
which was but now visibly living is now visibly dead. For though there
can be no manner of doubt that the souls of the just and holy dead live
in peaceful rest, yet so much better would it be for them to be alive
in healthy, well-conditioned bodies, that even those who hold the
tenet that it is most blessed to be quit of every kind of body, condemn
this opinion in spite of themselves. For no one will dare to set wise
men, whether yet to die or already dead, in other words, whether
already quit of the body, or shortly to be so, above the immortal
gods, to whom the Supreme, in Plato, promises as a munificent gift
life indissoluble, or in eternal union with their bodies. But this
same Plato thinks that nothing better can happen to men than that they
pass through life piously and justly, and, being separated from their
bodies, be received into the bosom of the gods, who never abandon
theirs; "that, oblivious of the past, they may revisit the upper
air, and conceive the longing to return again to the body." Virgil
is applauded for borrowing this from the Platonic system. Assuredly
Plato thinks that the souls of mortals cannot always be in their
bodies, but must necessarily be dismissed by death; and, on the other
hand, he thinks that without bodies they cannot endure for ever, but
with ceaseless alternation pass from life to death, and from death to
life. This difference, however, he sets between wise men and the
rest, that they are carried after death to the stars, that each man
may repose for a while in a star suitable for him, and may thence
return to the labors and miseries of mortals when he has become
oblivious of his former misery, and possessed with the desire of being
embodied. Those, again, who have lived foolishly transmigrate into
bodies fit for them, whether human or bestial. Thus he has appointed
even the good and wise souls to a very hard lot indeed, since they do
not receive such bodies as they might always and even immortally
inhabit, but such only as they can neither permanently retain nor enjoy
eternal purity without. Of this notion of Plato's, we have in a
former book already said that Porphyry was ashamed in the light of
these Christian times, so that he not only emancipated human souls
from a destiny in the bodies of beasts but also contended for the
liberation of the souls of the wise from all bodily ties, so that,
escaping from all flesh, they might, as bare and blessed souls, dwell
with the Father time without end. And that he might not seem to be
outbid by Christ's promise of life everlasting to His saints, he
also established purified souls in endless felicity, without return to
their former woes; but, that he might contradict Christ, he denies
the resurrection of incorruptible bodies, and maintains that these
souls will live eternally, not only without earthly bodies, but
without any bodies at all. And yet, whatever he meant by this
teaching, he at least did not teach that these souls should offer no
religious observance to the gods who dwelt in bodies. And why did he
not, unless because he did not believe that the souls, even though
separate from the body, were superior to those gods? Wherefore, if
these philosophers will not dare (as I think they will not) to set
human souls above the gods who are most blessed, and yet are tied
eternally to their bodies, why do they find that absurd which the
Christian faith preaches, namely, that our first parents were so
created that, if they had not sinned, they would not have been
dismissed from their bodies by any death, but would have been endowed
with immortality as the reward of their obedience, and would have lived
eternally with their bodies; and further, that the saints will in the
resurrection inhabit those very bodies in which they have here toiled,
but in such sort that neither shall any corruption or unwieldiness be
suffered to attach to their flesh, nor any grief or trouble to cloud
their felicity?
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