On the Resurrection of the Flesh

Tertullian

1. 1. The Doctrine of the Resurrection of the Body Brought to Light by the Gospel. The Faintest Glimpses of Something Like It Occasionally Met with in Heathenism. Inconsistencies of Pagan Teaching.
2. 2. The Jewish Sadducees a Link Between the Pagan Philosophers and the Heretics on This Doctrine
3. 3. Some Truths Held Even by the Heathen
4. 4. Heathens and Heretics Alike in Their Vilification of the Flesh and Its Functions, the Ordinary Cavils Against the Final Restitution of So Weak and Ignoble a Substance.
5. 5. Some Considerations in Reply Eulogistic of the Flesh. It Was Created by God. The Body of Man Was, in Fact, Previous to His Soul.
6. 6. Not the Lowliness of the Material, But the Dignity and Skill of the Maker, Must Be Remembered, in Gauging the Excellence of the Flesh. Christ Partook of Our Flesh.
7. 7. The Earthy Material of Which Flesh is Created Wonderfully Improved by God's Manipulation. By the Addition of the Soul in Man's Constitution It Became the Chief Work in the Creation.
8. 8. Christianity, by Its Provision for the Flesh, Has Put on It the Greatest Honour. The Privileges of Our Religion in Closest Connection with Our Flesh. Which Also Bears a Large Share in the Duties and Sacrifices of Religion.
9. 9. God's Love for the Flesh of Man, as Developed in the Grace of Christ Towards It. The Flesh the Best Means of Displaying the Bounty and Power of God.
10. 10. Holy Scripture Magnifies the Flesh, as to Its Nature and Its Prospects.
11. 11. The Power of God Fully Competent to Effect the Resurrection of the Flesh.
12. 12. Some Analogies in Nature Which Corroborate the Resurrection of the Flesh.
13. 13. From Our Author's View of a Verse in the Ninety-Second Psalm, the Phœnix is Made a Symbol of the Resurrection of Our Bodies.
14. 14. A Sufficient Cause for the Resurrection of the Flesh Occurs in the Future Judgment of Man. It Will Take Cognisance of the Works of the Body No Less Than of the Soul.
15. 15. As the Flesh is a Partaker with the Soul in All Human Conduct, So Will It Be in the Recompense of Eternity.
16. 16. The Heretics Called the Flesh The Vessel of the Soul, In Order to Destroy the Responsibility of the Body. Their Cavil Turns Upon Themselves and Shows the Flesh to Be a Sharer in Human Actions.
17. 17. The Flesh Will Be Associated with the Soul in Enduring the Penal Sentences of the Final Judgment.
18. 18. Scripture Phrases and Passages Clearly Assert The Resurrection of the Dead. The Force of This Very Phrase Explained as Indicating the Prominent Place of the Flesh in the General Resurrection.
19. 19. The Sophistical Sense Put by Heretics on the Phrase Resurrection of the Dead, As If It Meant the Moral Change of a New Life.
20. 20. Figurative Senses Have Their Foundation in Literal Fact. Besides, the Allegorical Style is by No Means the Only One Found in the Prophetic Scriptures, as Alleged by the Heretics.
21. 21. No Mere Metaphor in the Phrase Resurrection of the Dead. In Proportion to the Importance of Eternal Truths, is the Clearness of Their Scriptural Enunciation.
22. 22. The Scriptures Forbid Our Supposing Either that the Resurrection is Already Past, or that It Takes Place Immediately at Death. Our Hopes and Prayers Point to the Last Great Day as the Period of Its Accomplishment.
23. 23. Sundry Passages of St. Paul, Which Speak of a Spiritual Resurrection, Compatible with the Future Resurrection of the Body, Which is Even Assumed in Them.
24. 24. Other Passages Quoted from St. Paul, Which Categorically Assert the Resurrection of the Flesh at the Final Judgment.
25. 25. St. John, in the Apocalypse, Equally Explicit in Asserting the Same Great Doctrine.
26. 26. Even the Metaphorical Descriptions of This Subject in the Scriptures Point to the Bodily Resurrection, the Only Sense Which Secures Their Consistency and Dignity.
27. 27. Certain Metaphorical Terms Explained of the Resurrection of the Flesh.
28. 28. Prophetic Things and Actions, as Well as Words, Attest This Great Doctrine.
29. 29. Ezekiel's Vision of the Dry Bones Quoted.
30. 30. This Vision Interpreted by Tertullian of the Resurrection of the Bodies of the Dead. A Chronological Error of Our Author, Who Supposes that Ezekiel in His Chapter XXXI Prophesied Before the Captivity.
31. 31. Other Passages Out of the Prophets Applied to the Resurrection of the Flesh.
32. 32. Even Unburied Bodies Will Be Raised Again. Whatever Befalls Them God Will Restore Them Again. Jonah's Case Quoted in Illustration of God's Power.
33. 33. So Much for the Prophetic Scriptures. In the Gospels, Christ's Parables, as Explained by Himself, Have a Clear Reference to the Resurrection of the Flesh.
34. 34. Christ Plainly Testifies to the Resurrection of the Entire Man. Not in His Soul Only, Without the Body.
35. 35. Explanation of What is Meant by the Body, Which is to Be Raised Again. Not the Corporeality of the Soul.
36. 36. Christ's Refutation of the Sadducees, and Affirmation of Catholic Doctrine.
37. 37. Christ's Assertion About the Unprofitableness of the Flesh Explained Consistently with Our Doctrine.
38. 38. Christ, by Raising the Dead, Attested in a Practical Way the Doctrine of the Resurrection of the Flesh.
39. 39. Additional Evidence Afforded to Us in the Acts of the Apostles.
40. 40. Sundry Passages of St. Paul Which Attest Our Doctrine Rescued from the Perversions of Heresy.
41. 41. The Dissolution of Our Tabernacle Consistent with the Resurrection of Our Bodies.
42. 42. Death Changes, Without Destroying, Our Mortal Bodies. Remains of the Giants.
43. 43. No Disparagement of Our Doctrine in St. Paul's Phrase, Which Calls Our Residence in the Flesh Absence from the Lord.
44. 44. Sundry Other Passages of St. Paul Explained in a Sentence Confirmatory of Our Doctrine.
45. 45. The Old Man and the New Man of St. Paul Explained.
46. 46. It is the Works of the Flesh, Not the Substance of the Flesh, Which St. Paul Always Condemns.
47. 47. St. Paul, All Through, Promises Eternal Life to the Body.
48. 48. Sundry Passages in the Great Chapter of the Resurrection of the Dead Explained in Defence of Our Doctrine.
49. 49. The Same Subject Continued. What Does the Apostle Exclude from the Dead? Certainly Not the Substance of the Flesh.
50. 50. In What Sense Flesh and Blood are Excluded from the Kingdom of God.
51. 51. The Session of Jesus in His Incarnate Nature at the Right Hand of God a Guarantee of the Resurrection of Our Flesh.
52. 52. From St. Paul's Analogy of the Seed We Learn that the Body Which Died Will Rise Again, Garnished with the Appliances of Eternal Life.
53. 53. Not the Soul, But the Natural Body Which Died, is that Which is to Rise Again. The Resurrection of Lazarus Commented on. Christ's Resurrection, as the Second Adam, Guarantees Our Own.
54. 54. Death Swallowed Up of Life. Meaning of This Phrase in Relation to the Resurrection of the Body.
55. 55. The Change of a Thing's Condition is Not the Destruction of Its Substance. The Application of This Principle to Our Subject.
56. 56. The Procedure of the Last Judgment, and Its Awards, Only Possible on the Identity of the Risen Body with Our Present Flesh.
57. 57. Our Bodies, However Mutilated Before or After Death, Shall Recover Their Perfect Integrity in the Resurrection. Illustration of the Enfranchised Slave.
58. 58. From This Perfection of Our Restored Bodies Will Flow the Consciousness of Undisturbed Joy and Peace.
59. 59. Our Flesh in the Resurrection Capable, Without Losing Its Essential Identity, of Bearing the Changed Conditions of Eternal Life, or of Death Eternal.
60. 60. All the Characteristics of Our Bodies — Sex, Various Limbs, Etc.— Will Be Retained, Whatever Change of Functions These May Have, of Which Point, However, We are No Judges. Analogy of the Repaired Ship.
61. 61. The Details of Our Bodily Sex, and of the Functions of Our Various Members. Apology for the Necessity Which Heresy Imposes of Hunting Up All Its Unblushing Cavils.
62. 62. Our Destined Likeness to the Angels in the Glorious Life of the Resurrection.
63. 63. Conclusion. The Resurrection of the Flesh in Its Absolute Identity and Perfection. Belief of This Had Become Weak. Hopes for Its Refreshing Restoration Under the Influences of the Paraclete.

The resurrection of the dead is the Christian's trust. By it we are believers. To the belief of this (article of the faith) truth compels us — that truth which God reveals, but the crowd derides, which supposes that nothing will survive after death. And yet they do honour to their dead, and that too in the most expensive way according to their bequest, and with the daintiest banquets which the seasons can produce, on the presumption that those whom they declare to be incapable of all perception still retain an appetite. But (let the crowd deride): I on my side must deride it still more, especially when it burns up its dead with harshest inhumanity, only to pamper them immediately afterwards with gluttonous satiety, using the selfsame fires to honour them and to insult them. What piety is that which mocks its victims with cruelty? Is it sacrifice or insult (which the crowd offers), when it burns its offerings to those it has already burnt? But the wise, too, join with the vulgar crowd in their opinion sometimes. There is nothing after death, according to the school of Epicurus. After death all things come to an end, even death itself, says Seneca to like effect. It is satisfactory, however, that the no less important philosophy of Pythagoras and Empedocles, and the Plantonists, take the contrary view, and declare the soul to be immortal; affirming, moreover, in a way which most nearly approaches (to our own doctrine), that the soul actually returns into bodies, although not the same bodies, and not even those of human beings invariably: thus Euphorbus is supposed to have passed into Phythagoras, and Homer into a peacock. They firmly pronounced the soul's renewal to be in a body, (deeming it) more tolerable to change the quality (of the corporeal state) than to deny it wholly: they at least knocked at the door of truth, although they entered not. Thus the world, with all its errors, does not ignore the resurrection of the dead.