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| Concerning Corruption and Destruction.
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Chapter
XXVIII.—Concerning Corruption and
Destruction.
The word corruption2239
| 2239 Leont. De sect.,
Act. 10, and Dial. cont. Aphthartodoc. |
has two meanings2240
| 2240 Anast. Sinait.,
Hodegus, p. 295. | . For it
signifies all the human sufferings, such as hunger, thirst, weariness,
the piercing with nails, death, that is, the separation of soul and
body, and so forth. In this sense we say that our Lord’s
body was subject to corruption. For He voluntarily accepted all
these things. But corruption means also the complete resolution
of the body into its constituent elements, and its utter disappearance,
which is spoken of by many preferably as destruction. The body of
our Lord did not experience this form of corruption, as the prophet
David says, For Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt
Thou suffer Thine holy one to see corruption2241
.
Wherefore to say, with that foolish Julianus and
Gaïanus, that our Lord’s body was incorruptible, in the
first sense of the word, before His resurrection is impious. For
if it were incorruptible it was not really, but only apparently, of the
same essence as ours, and what the Gospel tells us happened, viz. the
hunger, the thirst, the nails, the wound in His side, the death, did
not actually occur. But if they only apparently happened, then
the mystery of the dispensation is an imposture and a sham, and He
became man only in appearance, and not in actual fact, and we are saved
only in appearance, and not in actual fact. But God forbid, and
may those who so say have no part in the salvation2242
| 2242 Anast.
Sinait., Hodegus, p. 293. | . But we have obtained and shall
obtain the true salvation. But in the second meaning of the word
“corruption,” we confess that our Lord’s body is
incorruptible, that is, indestructible, for such is the tradition of
the inspired Fathers. Indeed, after the resurrection of our
Saviour from the dead, we say that our Lord’s body is
incorruptible even in the first sense of the word. For our Lord
by His own body bestowed the gifts both of resurrection and of
subsequent incorruption even on our own body, He Himself having become
to us the firstfruits both of resurrection and incorruption, and of
passionlessness2243
. For as
the divine Apostle says, This corruptible must put on
incorruption2244
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