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But, say they, Porphyry tells us that the soul, in order to be
blessed, must escape connection with every kind of body. It does not
avail, therefore, to say that the future body shall be incorruptible,
if the soul cannot be blessed till delivered from every kind of body.
But in the book above mentioned I have already sufficiently discussed
this. This one thing only will I repeat, let Plato, their master,
correct his writings, and say that their gods, in order to be
blessed, must quit their bodies, or, in other words, die; for he
said that they were shut up in celestial bodies, and that,
nevertheless, the God who made them promised them immortality, that
is to say, an eternal tenure of these same bodies, such as was not
provided for them naturally, but only by the further intervention of
His will, that thus they might be assured of felicity. In this he
obviously overturns their assertion that the resurrection of the body
cannot be believed because it is impossible; for, according to him,
when the uncreated God promised immortality to the created gods, He
expressly said that He would do what was impossible. For Plato tells
us that He said, "As ye have had a beginning, so you cannot be
immortal and incorruptible; yet ye shall not decay, nor shall any fate
destroy you or prove stronger than my will, which more effectually
binds you to immortality than the bond of your nature keeps you from
it." If they who hear these words have, we do not say
understanding, but ears, they cannot doubt that Plato believed that
God promised to the gods He had made that He would effect an
impossibility. For He who says, "Ye cannot be immortal, but by my
will ye shall be immortal," what else does He say than this, "I
shall make you what ye cannot be?" The body, therefore, shall be
raised incorruptible, immortal, spiritual, by Him who, according to
Plato, has promised to do that which is impossible. Why then do they
still exclaim that this which God has promised, which the world has
believed on God's promise as was predicted, is an impossibility?
For what we say is, that the God who, even according to Plato,
does impossible things, will do this. It is not, then, necessary to
the blessedness of the soul that it be detached from a body of any kind
whatever, but that it receive an incorruptible body. And in what
incorruptible body will they more suitably rejoice than in that in which
they groaned when it was corruptible? For thus they shall not feel
that dire craving which Virgil, in imitation of Plato, has ascribed
to them when he says that they wish to return again to their bodies.
They shall not, I say, feel this desire to return to their bodies,
since they shall have those bodies to which a return was desired, and
shall, indeed, be in such thorough possession of them, that they
shall never lose them even for the briefest moment, nor ever lay them
down in death.
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