Homilies on First Corinthians

And God both raised up the Lord, and will raise up us also through His power.

Do you perceive again his Apostolical wisdom? For he is always establishing the credibility of the Resurrection from Christ, and especially now. For if our body be a member of Christ, and Christ be risen, the body also shall surely follow the Head.

“Through his power.” For since he had asserted a thing disbelieved and not to be apprehended by reasonings, he has left entirely to His incomprehensible power the circumstances of Christ's own Resurrection, producing this too as no small demonstration against them. And concerning the Resurrection of Christ he did not insert this: for he did not say, “And God shall also raise up the Lord;”— for the thing was past and gone—but how? “And God both raised up the Lord;” nor was there need of any proof. But concerning our resurrection, since it has not yet come to pass, he spoke not thus, but how? “And will raise up us also through His power:” by the reliance to be placed on the power of the Worker, he stops the mouths of the gainsayers.

Further: if he ascribe unto the Father the Resurrection of Christ, let not this at all disturb you. For not as though Christ were powerless, has he put this down, for He it is Himself who says, “Destroy this Temple, and in three days I will raise it up:” and again, “I have power to lay down My life, and I have power to take it again.” And Luke also in the Acts says, “To whom also He showed Himself alive.” Wherefore then does Paul so speak? Because both the acts of the Son are imputed unto the Father, and the Father's unto the Son. For He says, “Whatsoever things He does, these the Son also does in like manner.”

And very opportunely he here made mention of the Resurrection, keeping down by those hopes the tyranny of gluttonous desire; and all but saying, You have eaten, hast drunk to excess: and what is the result? Nothing, save only destruction. You have been conjoined unto Christ; and what is the result? A great and marvellous thing: the future Resurrection, that glorious one, and transcending all utterance!

3. Let no one therefore go on disbelieving the Resurrection: but if a man disbelieve, let him think how many things He made from nothing, and admit it as a proof also of the other. For the things which are already past are stranger by far, and fraught with overpowering wonder. Just consider. He took earth and mixed it, and made man; earth which existed not before this. How then did the earth become man? And how was it produced from nothing? And, how, all the things that were made from it? The endless sorts of irrational creatures; of seeds; of plants; no pangs of travail having preceded in the one case, no rains having come down upon the others; no tillage seen, no oxen, no plough, nor any thing else contributing to their production? Why, for this cause the lifeless and senseless thing was made to put forth in the beginning so many kinds of plants and irrational creatures, in order that from the very first He might instruct you in the doctrine of Resurrection. For this is more inexplicable than the Resurrection. For it is not the same thing to rekindle an extinguished lamp, and to show fire that has never yet appeared. It is not the same thing to raise up again a house which has fallen down, and to produce one which has never at all had an existence. For in the former case, if nothing else, yet the material was given to work with: but in the latter, not even the substance appeared. Wherefore He made first that which seemed to be the more difficult, to the end that hereby you might admit that which is the more easy; more difficult, I say, not to God, but as far as our reasonings can follow the subject. For with God nothing is difficult: but as the painter who has made one likeness will make ten thousand with ease, so also with God it is easy to make worlds without number and end. Rather, as it is easy for you to conceive a city and worlds without bound, so unto God is it easy to make them; or rather again it is easier by far. For you consume time, brief though it be, in your conception; but God not even this, but as much as stones are heavier than any of the lightest things, yea even than our minds; so much is our mind surpassed by the rapidity of God's work of creation.

Do you marvel at His power on the earth? Think again how the heaven was made, not yet being; how the innumerable stars, how the sun, how the moon; and all these things not yet being. Again, tell me how after they were made they stood fast, and upon what? What foundation have they? And what the earth? What comes next to the earth? And again, what after that which came next to the earth? Do you see into what an eddy the eye of your mind is plunged, unless you quickly take refuge in faith and the incomprehensible power of the Maker?

But if you choose from human things also to make conjecture, you will be able by degrees to find wings for your understanding. “What kind of human things?” may be asked. Do you not see the potters, how they fashion the vase which had been broken in pieces and become shapeless? Those who fuse the ore from the mine, how the earth in their hands turns out (τὴν γῆν χρύσιον ἀποφαίνουσι) gold, or silver, or copper? Others again who work in glass, how they transform the sand into one compact and transparent substance? Shall I speak of the dressers of leather, the dyers of purple vestments; how they make that which had received their tint show as one thing, when it had been another? Shall I speak of the generation of our own race? Does not a small seed, at first without form and impress, enter into the womb which receives it? Whence then the so intricate formation of the living creature? What is the wheat? Is it not cast a naked seed into the earth? After it has been cast there, does it not decay? Whence is the ear, the beard, the stalk, and all the other parts? Does not often a little grain of a fig fall into the ground, and produce both root, and branches, and fruit? And do you hereupon admit each of these and make no curious enquiries, and of God alone do you demand account, in His work of changing the fashion of our body? And how can such things be pardonable?

These things and such like we say to the Greeks. For to those who are obedient to the Scriptures, I have no occasion to speak at all.

I say, if you intend to pry curiously into all His doings, what shall God have more than men? And yet even of men there are many about whom we do not so enquire. Much more then ought we to abstain from impertinent inquiry about the wisdom of God, and from demanding accounts of it: in the first place, because He is trustworthy who affirms: in the second place, because the matter admits not investigation by reasonings. For God is not so abjectly poor as to work such things only as can be apprehended by the weakness of your reasonings. And if you comprehend not the work of an artisan, much less of God, the best of artificers. Disbelieve not then the Resurrection, for very far will you be from the hope of that which is to come.