To Pammachius against John of Jerusalem 31
31 PL 23, 382
31. I will speak freely, and although you screw your mouths, pull your hair, stamp your feet, and take up stones like the Jews, I will openly confess the faith of the Church. The reality of a resurrection without flesh and bones, without blood and members, is unintelligible. Where there are flesh and bones, where there are blood and members, there must of necessity be diversity of sex. Where there is diversity of sex, there John is John, Mary is Mary. You need not fear the marriage of those who, even before death, lived in their own sex without discharging the functions of sex. When it is said, “In that day they shall neither marry, nor be given in marriage,” the words refer to those who can marry, and yet will not do so. For no one says of the angels, “They shall not marry, nor be given in marriage.” I never heard of a marriage being celebrated among the spiritual virtues in heaven: but where there is sex, there you have man and woman. Hence it is that, although you were reluctant, you were compelled by the truth to confess that, “A man must either be crowned in the body because he lived a pure and upright life, or be condemned in the body, because he was the slave of pleasure and iniquity.” Substitute flesh for body, and you have not denied the existence of male and female. Who can have any glory from a life of chastity if we have no sex which would make unchastity possible? Who ever crowned a stone for continuing a virgin? Likeness to the angels is promised us, that is, the blessedness of their angelic existence without flesh and sex will be bestowed on us in our flesh and with our sex. I am simple enough so to believe, and so know how to confess that sex can exist without the functions of the senses; that it is thus that men rise, and that it is thus that they are made equal to the angels. Nor will the resurrection of the members all at once seem superfluous, because they are to have no office, since, while we are still in this life, we strive not to perform the works of the members. Moreover, likeness to the angels does not imply a changing of men into angels, but their growth in immortality and glory.
Veritas resurrectionis in quo sit. Similitudo angelorum nobis promissa in quo sit. --Ego libere dicam, et quamquam torqueatis ora, trahatis capillum, applaudatis pede, Judaeorum lapides requiratis, fidem Ecclesiae apertissime confitebor. Resurrectionis veritas sine carne et ossibus, sine sanguine et membris, intelligi non potest. Ubi caro et ossa, et sanguis et membra sunt, ibi necesse est ut sexus diversitas sit. Ubi sexus diversitas est, ibi Joannes Joannes, Maria Maria. Noli timere eorum nuptias, qui etiam ante mortem in sexu suo sine sexus opere vixerunt. Quando dicitur: In illa die neque nubent, neque nubentur , de his dicitur, qui possunt nubere, et tamen non nubent. Nemo enim dicit de Angelis: Non nubent, neque nubentur. Ego numquam audivi spiritualium Virtutum in coelo nuptias celebrari: sed ubi sexus est, ibi vir et femina. Unde et tu invitus licet, cogente veritate, confessus es, et dixisti: « Aut coronandus in corpore, quod caste egit et juste, aut condemnandus in corpore, quod voluptatibus iniquitatique servivit. » Tolle corpus et pone carnem, et virum ac feminam non negasti. Quis enim vivit cum gloria pudicitiae qui non habet sexum, per quem committi potuit impudicitia? Quis enim umquam lapidem coronavit, quia virgo permanserit? Angelorum nobis similitudo promittitur, id est, beatitudo illa, in qua sine carne et sexu sunt Angeli, nobis in carne et sexu nostro donabitur. Mea rusticitas sic credit, et sic intelligit sexum confiteri sine sexuum operibus: homines resurgere, et sic eos Angelis adaequari. Nec statim superflua videbitur membrorum resurrectio, quae caritura sint officio suo; cum adhuc in hac vita positi, nitamur opera non implere membrorum. Similitudo autem ad Angelos, non hominum in Angelos demutatio, sed profectus immortalitatis et gloriae est.