To Pammachius against John of Jerusalem 24
24 PL 23, 374
24. Again, in another part of his letter, that is, towards the end of his own homilies, that he might cheat the ear of the ignorant, he makes a grand parade and noise about the Resurrection, but in ambiguous and balanced language. He says: “We have not omitted the second glorious advent of our Lord Jesus Christ, who shall come in His own glory to judge the quick and the dead; for He shall awake all the dead, and cause them to stand before His own judgment-seat; and shall render to every one according to what he has done in the body, whether it be good or bad; for every one shall either be crowned in the body because he lived a pure and righteous life, or be condemned, because he was the slave alike of pleasure and iniquity.” What we read in the Gospel, that at the end of the world, if it were possible, even the elect are to be seduced, we see verified in this passage. The ignorant crowd hears of the dead and buried, hears of the resurrection of the dead in a true and not an imaginary sense, hears that the firstfruits of our bodily substance in our Lord’s body have reached the heavenly regions, hears that we shall rise again not in foreign and strange bodies, which are mere phantom shapes, but, as our Lord rose in the body which lay amongst us in the holy sepulchre, so we also in the very bodies with which we are now clothed and buried shall rise again in the day of judgment. And that no one might think this too little, he adds in the last section: “And He shall render to every one according to what he did in the body, whether it were good or bad: for every one shall either be crowned in the body for his pure and righteous life, or shall be condemned, because he was the slave of pleasure and iniquity.” Hearing these things the ignorant crowd suspects no artifice, no snares in all this noise about the dead, the burial of the body, and the resurrection. It believes things are as they are said to be. For there is more devotion in the ears of the people than in the priest’s heart.
Rursum in alia parte Epistolae, hoc est, in fine suorum tractatuum, ut auribus illuderet nescientium, strepitum resurrectionis ac pompam hac verborum ambiguitate libravit: « Sed neque de secundo glorioso adventu Domini nostri Jesu Christi intermisimus, qui venturus est in gloria sua judicare vivos et mortuos: ipse enim suscitabit omnes mortuos, et ante suum tribunal 430 esse faciet: et unicuique reddet secundum quod egit per corpus, sive bonum sive malum; scilicet aut coronandus in corpore, quod caste egit, et juste; aut condemnandus, quod voluptatibus pariter iniquitatibusque servivit. » Hoc quod in Evangelio legimus: In consummatione mundi, si fieri potest , seduci etiam electos, in hoc capitulo comprobamus. Audit vulgus indoctum mortuos et sepultos: audit resurrectionem mortuorum, veritate et non putative: audit primitias massae nostrorum corporum, in Domini corpore ad coelestia pervenisse: audit resurrecturos, non in peregrinis alienisque corporibus, quae assumuntur in phantasmate, sed sicut surrexit Dominus in corpore, quod apud nos in sancto sepulcro conditum jacuit: ita et nos in ipsis corporibus, quibus nunc circumdamur et sepelimur, in die judicii resurrecturos. Et ne hoc parum quis existimaret, addit in extremo capitulo: « Et unicuique reddet secundum quod egit per corpus, sive bonum, sive malum: scilicet aut coronandus in corpore quod caste egit et juste: aut condemnandus, quod voluptatibus iniquitatibusque servivit. » Haec audiens, indoctum vulgus, in tanto mortuorum, sepulti corporis, resurrectionis sonitu, nullam stropham, nullas insidias suspicatur. Credit esse quod dicitur. Sanctiores enim sunt aures populi, quam sacerdotis animus.