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What, then, are we to say of infants, if not that they will not rise
in that diminutive body in which they died, but shall receive by the
marvellous and rapid operation of God that body which time by a slower
process would have given them? For in the Lord's words, where He
says, "Not a hair of your head shall perish," it is asserted that
nothing which was possessed shall be wanting; but it is not said that
nothing which was not possessed shall be given. To the dead infant
there was wanting the perfect stature of its body; for even the perfect
infant lacks the perfection of bodily size, being capable of further
growth. This perfect stature is, in a sense, so possessed by all
that they are conceived and born with it, that is, they have it
potentially, though not yet in actual bulk; just as all the members of
the body are potentially in the seed, though, even after the child is
born, some of them, the teeth for exampl , may be wanting. In this
seminal principle of every substance, there seems to be, as it were,
the beginning of everything which does not yet exist, or rather does
not appear, but which in process of time will come into being, or
rather into sight. In this, therefore, the child who is to be tall
or short is already tall or short. And in the resurrection of the
body, we need, for the same reason, fear no bodily loss; for though
all should be of equal size, and reach gigantic proportions, lest the
men who were largest here should lose anything of their bulk and it
should perish, in contradiction to the words of Christ, who said that
not a hair of their head should perish, yet why should there lack the
means by which that wonderful Worker should make such additions,
seeing that He is the Creator, who Himself created all things out of
nothing?
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