A Commentary on the Apostles' Creed 42
42 Section 42 PL 21, 379
42. But unbelievers cry, “How can the flesh, which has been putrified and dissolved, or changed into dust, sometimes also swallowed up by the sea, and dispersed by the waves, be gathered up again, and again made one, and a man’s body formed anew out of it?” To whom our first answer is in Paul’s words: “Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die. And that which thou sowest, thou sowest not the body, which shall be, but bare grain of wheat or of some other seed: but God giveth it a body as seemeth good to Him.” Did you not believe that that which you see taking place every year in the seeds which you cast into the ground will come to pass in your flesh which by the law of God is sown in the earth? Why, pray, have you so mean an opinion of God’s power that you do not believe it possible for the scattered dust of which each man’s flesh was composed to be re-collected and restored to its own original fabric? Do you refuse to admit the fact when you see mortal ingenuity search for veins of metal deeply buried in the ground, and the experienced eye discover gold where the inexperienced thinks there is nothing but earth? Why should we refuse to grant these things to Him who made man, when he whom He made can do so much? And when mortal ingenuity discovers that gold has its own proper vein, and silver another, and that a far different vein of copper, and diverse and distinct veins of iron and lead lie concealed beneath what has the appearance of earth, shall divine power be thought unable to discover and distinguish the component particles belonging to each man’s flesh, even though they seem to be dispersed?
Sed infideles clamant, et dicunt: Quomodo potest caro, quae putrefacta dissolvitur, aut in pulverem vertitur, maris etiam interdum profundo sorbetur, fluctibusque dispergitur, recolligi rursum et reintegrari in unum, et corpus ex ea hominis reparari? Ad quos primam interim responsionem sermonibus Pauli faciamus, dicentis eis: Insipiens tu, quod seminas non vivificatur, nisi prius moriatur. Et quod seminas, non corpus, quod futurum est seminas, sed nudum granum tritici, aut alicujus caeterorum seminum. Deus autem dat illi corpus prout vult . Quod autem [Al. ergo] in seminibus, quae tu in terram jacis, per annos singulos fieri vides, hoc in tua carne, quae lege Dei seminatur in terra, futurum esse non credis? Cur quaeso tam angustus et invalidus divinae potentiae aestimator es, ut dispersum uniuscujusque carnis pulverem, in suam rationem colligi et reparari posse non credas? An non censeas, cum videas, quod etiam mortale ingenium demersas in profundum terrae metallorum venas rimatur? Et artificis oculus aurum videt, in quo imperitus terram putat. Haec cur non 107 concedimus ei, qui fecit hominem, quando tantum is, qui ab ipso factus est, assequi potest? Et cum auri esse propriam venam, et argenti aliam, aeris quoque longe disparem, ferri ac plumbi diversam intra speciem terrae latere, mortale deprehendat ingenium: divina virtus invenire posse ac discernere non putabitur uniuscujusque carnis proprium censum, etiam si videatur dispersus?