Enchiridion (Handbook on Faith, Hope, and Love) 88–109

Moreover, the earthly matter from which the flesh of mortals is created does not perish for God; but into whatever dust or ashes it is dissolved, into whatever vapors and breezes it flees, into whatever substance of other bodies or into the elements themselves it is turned, into the food of whatever animals, even of men, it passes and is changed into their flesh, in an instant of time it returns to that human soul which first animated it so that it became a man, lived, and grew.

That earthly matter, then, which becomes a corpse when the soul departs, will not be restored at the resurrection in such a way that the parts which slip away and are turned into one and another species and form of other things, though they return to the body from which they slipped away, must also return to the same parts of the body where they were. Otherwise, if what such frequent cutting took away returns to the hair, and what trimming so often removed returns to the nails, an excessive and unseemly deformity presents itself to those who think about it, and who therefore do not believe in the resurrection of the flesh. But just as, if a statue of some soluble metal were melted by fire, or ground into dust, or fused into a mass, and the artist wished to restore it again from the same quantity of that material, it would make no difference to its integrity which particle of the material was given back to which member of the statue, provided that the restored statue took back the whole of which it had been made: so God, the wonderful and ineffable artist, will restore our flesh from the whole of which it had consisted, with wonderful and ineffable speed; nor will it matter for its reintegration whether hairs return to hairs and nails to nails, or whatever of them had perished is changed into flesh and called back into other parts of the body, the providence of the artist taking care that nothing unseemly result.

Nor does it follow that the stature of individuals when they come back to life will be different because it was different when they were alive, or that the thin will come back to life with the same thinness or the fat with the same fatness. But if it is in the Creator's plan that the individuality and recognizable likeness of each, placed in his features, be preserved, while in the other goods of the body all are made equal, that matter will be so adjusted in each one that nothing of it perishes, and whatever was lacking to anyone will be supplied by him who could make what he willed even from nothing. But if in the bodies of those who rise there is a reasonable inequality, as there is in the voices with which a song is filled, this will be done for each from the matter of his own body, so that it both makes the man fit for the angelic company and brings nothing unfitting before their senses. For there will be nothing unseemly there; but whatever will be there will be seemly, since it will not be there if it is not seemly.

The bodies of the saints, then, will rise without any defect, without any deformity, as without any corruption, burden, or difficulty; in them there will be as great ease as happiness. For this reason they are also called spiritual, though without doubt they will be bodies, not spirits. But as now the body is called natural (literally “ensouled”), though it is a body, not a soul, so then it will be a spiritual body, yet a body, not a spirit. Accordingly, as regards the corruption which now weighs down the soul, and the vices by which the flesh lusts against the spirit, it will then be not flesh but body, since there are also bodies called heavenly. For this reason it was said, “Flesh and blood will not possess the kingdom of God”; and, as if explaining what he had said, “nor will corruption possess incorruption.” What he first called “flesh and blood” he later called “corruption”; and what he first called “the kingdom of God” he later called “incorruption.” But as regards substance, even then it will be flesh. For this reason even after the resurrection the body of Christ was called flesh. But the apostle says, “It is sown a natural body, it will rise a spiritual body,” because there will then be such harmony of flesh and spirit, the spirit giving life to the flesh subject to it without need of any sustenance, that nothing in us will fight against us; but as we shall suffer no enemy outside, so we shall not suffer ourselves as enemies within.

But whoever are not freed from that mass of perdition which was made through the first man, through the one Mediator between God and men, will also rise, each with his own flesh, but to be punished with the devil and his angels. Whether they will rise with the defects and deformities of their bodies, whatever defective and deformed members they bore, what need is there to labor in inquiring? For the uncertain condition or beauty of those whose condemnation will be certain and eternal ought not to weary us. Nor let it trouble us how their body will be incorruptible if it can suffer pain, or how corruptible if it cannot die. For there is no true life except where one lives happily, nor true incorruption except where health is corrupted by no pain. But where the unhappy one is not allowed to die, death itself, so to speak, does not die; and where perpetual pain does not destroy but afflicts, corruption itself does not end. This in the holy Scriptures is called the second death.

Yet neither the first death, by which the soul is compelled to leave its body, nor the second, by which the soul is not permitted to leave its penal body, would have befallen man if no one had sinned. Certainly the mildest punishment of all will be that of those who, besides the sin which they contracted by origin, added none further; and among the rest, who did add, each will have a condemnation there the more tolerable, the less iniquity he had here.

While, then, the reprobate angels and men remain in eternal punishment, the saints will know more fully what good grace has conferred on them. Then it will appear more evidently from the facts themselves what is written in the Psalm, “Mercy and judgment I will sing to you, O Lord”; because no one is freed except by undeserved mercy, and no one is condemned except by deserved judgment.

Then what is now hidden will not be hidden: why, when of two infants one was to be taken up by mercy and the other left by judgment (in which the one taken up might recognize what was owed him by judgment, had mercy not come to his aid), the one rather than the other was taken up, though the case was the same for both; why miracles were not done among some who, if they had been done, would have done penance, and were done among those who were not going to believe. For the Lord says most plainly: “Woe to you, Chorazin; woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the miracles that were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would long ago have repented in sackcloth and ashes.” And certainly God did not unjustly will that they should not be saved, though they could have been saved if he had willed. Then it will be seen in the clearest light of wisdom what the faith of the pious now holds before it is seen by manifest knowledge: how certain, unchangeable, and most effective is the will of God; how many things he can do and does not will, but wills nothing that he cannot do; and how true is what is sung in the Psalm, “But our God is in heaven above; in heaven and on earth he has done all things whatsoever he willed.” This is certainly not true if he willed some things and did not do them, and, what is more unworthy, did not do them because the will of man prevented what the Almighty willed from being done. Nothing, then, is done unless the Almighty wills it to be done, either by permitting it to be done or by doing it himself.

Nor is it to be doubted that God does well even in permitting whatever is done badly. For he permits this only by just judgment; and certainly everything that is just is good. Although, then, the things that are evil, in so far as they are evil, are not good, yet it is good that not only good things but also evil things should exist. For unless it were good that evils too should exist, they would in no way be permitted to exist by the almighty Good, for whom without doubt it is as easy not to permit what he does not will to exist as it is to do what he wills. Unless we believe this, the very beginning of our Creed is endangered, in which we confess that we believe in God the Father almighty. For he is truly called almighty for no other reason than that he can do whatever he wills, and the effect of the almighty will is not hindered by the will of any creature.

Therefore we must see in what sense it is said of God (for the apostle said this too most truly), “who wills all men to be saved.” For since not all, but far more, are not saved, it certainly seems that what God wills to be done is not done, the human will, that is, hindering the will of God. For when the cause is asked why not all are saved, the usual answer is that they themselves do not will it. This certainly cannot be said of infants, who do not yet have willing or not willing. For if what they do by infantile movement were to be judged attributable to their will, since when they are baptized they resist as much as they can, we would say that they are saved even against their will. But more plainly the Lord in the Gospel, addressing the impious city, says, “How often I willed to gather your children as a hen her chicks, and you would not!” as though the will of God were overcome by the will of men, and the most powerful could not do what he willed because the weakest prevented it by not willing. And where is that omnipotence by which “in heaven and on earth he has done all things whatsoever he willed,” if he willed to gather the children of Jerusalem and did not do it? Or rather, was it not that she did not will her children to be gathered by him, but even against her will he gathered those of her children whom he willed? For in heaven and on earth he did not will some things and do them, and will other things and not do them; but “all things whatsoever he willed, he has done.”

Further, who would be so impiously foolish as to say that God cannot turn to good the evil wills of men, which he wills, when he wills, where he wills? But when he does it, he does it through mercy; when he does not, he does not through judgment. For “he has mercy on whom he wills, and hardens whom he wills.” In saying this the apostle was commending grace, and to commend it he had already spoken of the twins in Rebecca's womb, of whom, when they were not yet born and had done nothing good or bad, so that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not from works but from him who calls, it was said to her, “The elder will serve the younger.” For this reason he added another prophetic testimony, where it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.” But perceiving how what was said could disturb those who cannot penetrate this depth of grace by understanding, he says, “What then shall we say? Is there injustice with God? Far from it.” For it seems unjust that without any merits of good or evil works God should love one and hate the other. In this matter, if he had wished the future works to be understood, good of the one or evil of the other, which God certainly foreknew, he would by no means say “not from works” but would say “from future works,” and in that way would solve this question, or rather would raise no question needing to be solved. But now, having answered, “Far from it,” that is, far be it that there be injustice with God, at once, to prove that this happens by no injustice of God, he says: “For he says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I have had mercy, and I will show mercy to whom I have been merciful.” For who but a fool would think God unjust, whether he inflicts penal judgment on the deserving or shows mercy to the undeserving? Finally he infers and says, “So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy.” Both twins, then, were born by nature children of wrath, bound not by any works of their own but by origin from Adam with the chain of condemnation. But he who said, “I will have mercy on whom I have had mercy,” loved Jacob through free mercy and hated Esau through deserved judgment. Since this judgment was owed to both, the one recognized in the other that he must not glory in his own differing merits for not incurring the same punishment in the same case, but in the bounty of divine grace, because “it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy.” For by a most profound and most wholesome mystery the whole face, and so to speak the countenance, of the holy Scriptures is found by those who look well to admonish this: that “he who glories should glory in the Lord.”

Having commended God's mercy in saying, “So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy,” then, to commend judgment too (for where mercy is not shown, it is not injustice but judgment, since there is no injustice with God), he at once added and said: “For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, For this very purpose I raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” Having said this, he concluded with reference to both, that is, to mercy and to judgment: “So then he has mercy on whom he wills, and hardens whom he wills.” He has mercy, that is, by great goodness; he hardens with no injustice; so that neither may the one freed glory in his own merits, nor the one condemned complain except of his own merits. For grace alone distinguishes the redeemed from the lost, whom a common cause derived from their origin had fused into one mass of perdition. But whoever hears this in such a way as to say, “Why then does he still find fault? For who resists his will?” as though an evil man should not be blamed because God has mercy on whom he wills and hardens whom he wills: far be it that we should be ashamed to answer what we see the apostle answered: “O man, who are you to answer back to God? Does what is formed say to him who formed it, Why have you made me thus? Or does the potter not have power over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honor and another for dishonor?” At this place some foolish people think the apostle failed in his answer and, for lack of a reason to give, repressed the boldness of the objector. But what was said has great weight: “O man, who are you?” In such questions it recalls a man to consider his own capacity, in a brief word indeed, but in reality it is a great giving of reason. For if he does not grasp these things, who is he to answer God? But if he does grasp them, he finds still less what to answer. For he sees, if he grasps it, that the whole human race was condemned in its apostate root by so just a divine judgment that even if none were freed from it, no one could rightly find fault with God's justice; and that those who are freed had to be freed in such a way that, from the greater number not freed but left in most just condemnation, it might be shown what the whole lump deserved, and whither God's deserved judgment would lead even these, if undeserved mercy did not come to their aid: so that every mouth of those who would glory in their own merits may be stopped, and he who glories may glory in the Lord.

These are the great works of the Lord, sought out in all his wills; and so wisely sought out that, when the angelic and human creature had sinned, that is, had done not what he willed but what it willed, through the same will of the creature by which what the Creator did not will was done, he himself fulfilled what he willed, using even evils well, as the supremely good, for the condemnation of those whom he justly predestined to punishment, and for the salvation of those whom he kindly predestined to grace. For as far as they themselves were concerned, they did what God did not will; but as far as God's omnipotence is concerned, they were in no way able to bring that about. For by the very fact that they acted against his will, his will was done concerning them. For this reason “the works of the Lord are great, sought out in all his wills,” so that in a wonderful and ineffable way what is done even against his will is not done apart from his will. For it would not be done if he did not permit it; and certainly he permits it not unwillingly but willingly; nor would he, being good, permit evil to be done unless, being almighty, he could make good even out of evil.

Sometimes, however, a man with a good will wills something which God does not will, though God's will too is good, much more fully and much more certainly; for his will can never be evil. As if a good son wishes his father to live, whom God by his good will wills to die. And again it can happen that a man wills with an evil will what God wills with a good one: as if a bad son wishes his father to die, and God wills this too. The former wills what God does not will, the latter wills what God also wills; and yet the piety of the former, though willing something else, is more in harmony with God's good will than the impiety of the latter, willing the same thing. So much does it matter what is fitting for man to will and what for God, and to what end each refers his will, for it to be approved or disapproved. For God fulfills some of his wills, certainly good ones, through the evil wills of evil men: as through the malevolent Jews, by the good will of the Father, Christ was killed for us; which became so great a good that the apostle Peter, when he did not want it to happen, was called Satan by him who had come to be killed. How good appeared the wills of the pious faithful who did not want the apostle Paul to go to Jerusalem, lest he suffer there the evils which the prophet Agabus had foretold! And yet God willed him to suffer these things for proclaiming the faith of Christ, training a martyr of Christ. And he fulfilled this good will of his not through the good wills of the Christians but through the evil wills of the Jews; and those who did not will what he willed belonged more to him than those through whose willing what he willed was done; for they did the very same thing, but he through them with a good will, they with an evil one.

But however many may be the wills of angels or of men, of the good or of the evil, whether they will what God wills or something other than God, the will of the Almighty is always unconquered; and it can never be evil, because even when it inflicts evils it is just, and certainly what is just is not evil. God almighty, then, whether through mercy he has mercy on whom he wills, or through judgment hardens whom he wills, does nothing unjustly, does nothing except willingly, and does all things whatsoever he wills.

And therefore, when we hear and read in the sacred Writings that he wills all men to be saved, although it is certain to us that not all men are saved, we must not on that account detract anything from the most omnipotent will of God; but we must understand what is written, “who wills all men to be saved,” as if it were said that no man is saved except one whom he himself willed to be saved: not that there is no man whom he does not will to be saved, but that no one is saved except one whom he wills; and therefore he is to be asked to will it, because it necessarily comes about if he wills it. For the apostle was speaking about praying to God when he said this. For so we also understand what is written in the Gospel, “who enlightens every man”: not because there is no man who is not enlightened, but because no one is enlightened except by him. Or certainly it was said, “who wills all men to be saved,” not because there was no man whom he did not will to be saved (he who did not will to do miracles among those who, he says, would have repented if he had done them), but so that we understand “all men” as the whole human race distributed through all its differences: kings, private persons, nobles, commoners, the exalted, the lowly, the learned, the unlearned, the sound in body, the weak, the clever, the slow-witted, the foolish, the rich, the poor, those of middle means, men, women, infants, boys, adolescents, young men, the elderly, the old; in all languages, all customs, all arts, all professions, placed in the innumerable variety of wills and consciences, and whatever other difference there is among men. For which of these is there from which God does not will men to be saved through all nations by his only-begotten Son our Lord, and therefore saves them, since the Almighty cannot will in vain whatever he wills? For the apostle had commanded that prayer be made for all men, and had added specially for kings and those in high places, who might be thought to shrink from the humility of the Christian faith out of worldly pride and arrogance. Accordingly, saying, “For this is good before God our Saviour,” that is, that prayer be made even for such, at once, to remove despair, he added, “who wills all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” For God judged this good, to deign to grant salvation to the exalted through the prayers of the lowly; which we now certainly see fulfilled. The Lord too used this manner of speaking in the Gospel, where he says to the Pharisees, “You tithe mint and rue and every herb.” For the Pharisees did not tithe the herbs of others and all the herbs of all foreigners in all lands. As, then, here “every herb” means every kind of herb, so there we can understand “all men” as every kind of men; and in whatever other way it can be understood, provided only we are not compelled to believe that the almighty God willed something to be done and it was not done; for if without any ambiguity “in heaven and on earth,” as the Truth sings of him, “he has done all things whatsoever he willed,” he certainly did not will to do whatever he has not done.

Therefore God would have willed to keep even the first man in that salvation in which he was created, and at a suitable time, after children had been begotten, to bring him without the intervention of death to better things, where he could not only not commit sin but could not even have the will to sin, if he had foreknown that he would have a perpetual will to remain without sin, as he had been made. But because he foreknew that he would use free choice badly, that is, would sin, he rather prepared his own will for this: that he himself might do good even from one doing evil, and so the good will of the Almighty might not be made void by man's evil will, but might nonetheless be fulfilled.

For it was fitting that man should first be made so that he could will both good and evil, not without reward if good, not without punishment if evil; but afterwards he will be such that he cannot will evil, and will not on that account lack free choice. For choice will be much freer that cannot serve sin at all. For the will is not to be blamed, nor is it not a will, nor is it to be called not free, by which we so will to be happy that we not only do not will to be wretched but cannot will it at all. As, then, our soul even now does not will unhappiness, so it will always not will iniquity. But the order was not to be passed over in which God willed to show how good a rational animal is that is able not to sin, though one that is unable to sin is better; just as that immortality was lesser, but still was immortality, in which man was able not to die, though that will be greater in which he will be unable to die.

That immortality human nature lost through free choice; this it will receive through grace, which it would have received through merit if it had not sinned; although even then there could have been no merit without grace. For though sin lay in free choice alone, yet free choice was not sufficient for keeping righteousness unless divine help were given through participation in the unchangeable good. For as it is in man's power to die when he wills (for there is no one who cannot kill himself, to say nothing else, by not eating), but for keeping life the will is not enough if the helps of food or of any protections are lacking: so man in paradise was capable of killing himself through his will by abandoning righteousness, but for the life of righteousness to be kept by him, willing was too little unless he who had made him helped him. But after that ruin God's mercy is greater, since choice itself has to be freed from the slavery in which sin rules together with death. And it is not freed at all by itself, but only by God's grace, which is set in faith in Christ; so that the will itself, as it is written, is prepared by the Lord, the will by which the other gifts of God are received, through which one comes to the eternal gift.

Hence the apostle calls even eternal life itself, which is certainly the reward of good works, the grace of God: “For the wages of sin,” he says, “is death; but the grace of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Wages are paid as owed for military service, not given as a gift; therefore he said, “The wages of sin is death,” to show that death was inflicted on sin not undeservedly but as owed. But grace, unless it is gratuitous, is not grace. It is to be understood, then, that even the good merits of man are gifts of God; and when eternal life is rendered to them, what is rendered but grace for grace? So, then, man was made upright in such a way that he could both remain in that uprightness, not without divine help, and become perverse by his own choice. Whichever of these he chose, God's will would be done, either even by him or at any rate concerning him. Accordingly, because he preferred to do his own will rather than God's, God's will was done concerning him, who from the same mass of perdition which flowed from his stock makes one vessel for honor and another for dishonor: for honor through mercy, for dishonor through judgment; so that no one may glory in man, and therefore not in himself.

For we would not be freed even through the one Mediator between God and men, the man Jesus Christ, unless he were also God. But when Adam was made, an upright man, there was no need of a mediator. But when sins had separated the human race far from God, we had to be reconciled to God through a Mediator, who alone was born, lived, and was killed without sin, even to the resurrection of the flesh to eternal life: so that human pride might be rebuked and healed through the humility of God; that it might be shown to man how far he had gone away from God, when he was called back through God incarnate; that an example of obedience might be given to disobedient man through the God-man; that, as the Only-begotten took the form of a servant, which had merited nothing before, the fountain of grace might be opened; that the resurrection of the flesh promised to the redeemed might be shown beforehand in the Redeemer himself; that the devil might be conquered through the same nature which he rejoiced to have deceived; and yet that man might not glory, lest pride be born again; and whatever else about so great a mystery of the Mediator can be seen and said by those who make progress, or only seen even if it cannot be said.

The time that lies between a man's death and the final resurrection holds souls in hidden receptacles, as each is worthy of rest or of affliction according to what it obtained in the flesh while it lived.