§ 20
We have now said in part, so far as we were able to grasp it, what the cause was of His bodily appearing. It was in the power of no one else to turn what is corruptible into incorruption, except the Saviour Himself, who in the beginning made all things out of nothing. No one else could create anew in men what is after the image, except the Image of the Father. No one else could present the mortal as immortal, except our Lord Jesus Christ, who is Himself the Life. And no one else could teach men concerning the Father, and pull down the worship of idols, except the Word who orders all things, and who alone is the Father's true and only-begotten Son.
But the debt owed by all still had to be paid. For all, as I said before, were owing death; and it was chiefly for this that He came among us. So then, after the proofs of His Godhead from His works, He now offered up the sacrifice on behalf of all, yielding His own temple to death in the place of all. He did this to make men free and clear of the ancient transgression, and to show Himself stronger than death, displaying His own body incorruptible as the first-fruits of the resurrection of all.
And do not be surprised if we say the same things more than once about the same matters. We are speaking of the good pleasure of God, and so we set out the one meaning in more than one form, lest we should seem to be leaving something out and be charged with treating it too thinly. It is better to bear the reproach of saying a thing twice than to leave out anything that ought to be written.
The body, then, had a nature common to all, for it was a human body; and although by a wholly new marvel it was formed of a Virgin alone, still, being mortal, it died as its like must die. But by the entry of the Word into it, it was no longer corrupted according to its own nature. Because of the Word of God who dwelt in it, it came to be outside corruption. And so two things came to pass together, and both beyond all expectation: the death of all was fulfilled in the Lord's body, and death and corruption were made to vanish because of the Word who was joined to it.
For there was need of death, and a death on behalf of all had to take place, so that the debt owed by all might be paid. This is why, as I said before, the Word, since He could not Himself die, being immortal, took to Himself a body that was able to die. He took it so that He might offer it as His own in the place of all. Through His entry into it He suffered on behalf of all. So He brought to nothing him who holds the power of death, that is, the devil. And He set free those who through fear of death were all their lifetime held in bondage.
§ 21
Now that the common Saviour of all has died on our behalf, we who are faithful in Christ no longer die the death as men died before, under the threat of the law. That condemnation has ceased. Corruption has been stopped and made to vanish by the grace of the Resurrection. From now on we are only dissolved, according to the mortal nature of our bodies, for the time that God has appointed to each of us, so that we may be able to obtain a better resurrection.
For like seeds cast into the earth, we do not perish when we are dissolved, but we shall rise again as things that have been sown, since death has been brought to nothing by the grace of the Saviour. This is why the blessed Paul, who was made a surety of the resurrection to all, says: "This corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. But when this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall come to pass the word that is written: Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your sting?"
Why then, someone may say, did He not lay the body aside privately, as a man does? If it was necessary for Him to yield it to death in the place of all, why go so far as to be crucified? For it would have been more fitting for Him to lay the body aside with honor, than to endure such a death as this with insult. But look again, and see whether such an objection is not merely a human one, while what the Saviour did is truly divine, and worthy of His Godhead for many reasons.
First, then: the death that comes upon men comes to them because of the weakness of their nature. They cannot continue long as they are, and in time they are dissolved. This is why diseases come upon them, and they grow weak and die. But the Lord is not weak. He is the Power of God, and the Word of God, and Life itself. Suppose, then, that He had laid His body aside somewhere in private, upon a bed, after the manner of men. It would have been thought that He too suffered this according to the weakness of His nature, and that there was nothing more in Him than in other men.
But He was the Life, and the Word of God, and the death on behalf of all had to take place. Therefore, since He was Life and Power, the body gained strength in Him; and since death had to come, He did not take from Himself, but received at the hands of others, the occasion of perfecting the sacrifice. For it was not right that the Lord should fall sick, who healed the diseases of others; nor again that the body should lose its strength, in which He gave strength to the weaknesses of others.
Why then did He not prevent death, as He prevented sickness? Because it was for this that He had the body, and to prevent it would have been unfitting, lest the Resurrection also should be hindered. Yet it was equally unfitting that sickness should come before His death, lest weakness be thought to belong to Him who was in the body. Did He not hunger, then? Yes, He hungered, according to what belongs to the body. But He did not perish of hunger, because of the Lord who wore it. And so, although He died as a ransom for all, He did not see corruption. He rose again whole and entire, since the body belonged to no other, but to Life itself.
§ 22
But He ought, someone will say, to have hidden from the plot of the Jews, so as to keep His body altogether free from death. Let such a man hear that this too would have been unfitting for the Lord. It was not fitting that the Word of God, being the Life, should inflict death upon His own body. Neither, then, did it suit Him to flee the death offered by others. Rather, He should pursue it to its destruction. With good reason, then, He neither laid the body aside of His own accord, nor fled the Jews when they plotted against Him.
This showed no weakness in the Word. On the contrary, it made Him known as Saviour and as Life, since He waited for death in order to destroy it, and hastened to accomplish the death offered Him for the salvation of all. And besides, the Saviour came to accomplish not His own death, but the death of men. He did not lay the body aside by a death of His own, for being the Life He had none. He received instead the death that came from men, so that when it came upon Him in His own body He might make an end of it altogether.
There is another way, too, in which one may reasonably see why the Lord's body should have come to such an end. The Lord was concerned above all for the resurrection of the body which He was to accomplish. That resurrection was to be His monument of victory over death. He was to display it to all, and to assure all that the blotting out of corruption had been worked by Him, and that from then on their bodies would be incorruptible. As a pledge of this, and as a token of the resurrection in store for all, He has kept His own body incorrupt.
Suppose, on the other hand, that His body had fallen sick, and that the Word had been parted from it in the sight of all. It would have been unbecoming for Him who healed the diseases of others to let His own instrument waste away in sickness. For how could it have been believed that He drove out the weaknesses of others, if His own temple were sick within Him? Either He would have been laughed at as unable to drive away disease, or, if He could and did not, He would have been thought to have no love for men in His dealings with others also.
§ 23
But suppose that, without any sickness and without any pain, He had hidden His body away by Himself: in a corner, or in a desert place, or in a house, or anywhere at all. Then afterwards He appeared suddenly and said that He had been raised from the dead. He would have seemed to everyone to be telling idle tales. He would have been disbelieved far more when He spoke of the resurrection, since there would have been no one at all to bear witness to His death.
Death must come before resurrection, for there could be no resurrection unless death had gone before. So if the death of the body had happened somewhere in secret, with the death neither seen nor taking place before witnesses, then His resurrection also would have been unseen and unattested. Or why, when He had risen, did He proclaim the resurrection, and yet let His death happen out of sight? He drove out demons before the eyes of all. He made the man blind from birth see again, and changed the water into wine, so that through these things He might be believed to be the Word of God. Why then would He not show His mortal nature to be incorruptible before the eyes of all, so that He might be believed to be Himself the Life?
And how were His disciples to have boldness in speaking of the resurrection, if they could not say that He had first died? Or how could they be believed when they said that death had come first and then the resurrection, unless those before whom they spoke so boldly were themselves witnesses of that death?
For consider how things actually were. Both the death and the resurrection happened before the eyes of all, and still the Pharisees of that day refused to believe. They even forced those who had seen the resurrection to deny it. Had these things happened in secret, how many pretexts for unbelief would they have devised? And how could the end of death have been shown, and the victory over it? Only by calling death out before the eyes of all, and proving it dead, emptied of its power from then on by the incorruption of His body.
§ 24
We must also anticipate in our reply what others might say. For perhaps a man might say this too. If His death had to take place before all, and with witnesses, so that the account of His resurrection might be believed, then at least He should have devised for Himself a glorious death. That way He would escape the dishonor of the Cross.
But had He done even this, He would have given ground for suspicion against Himself, that He was not able to prevail against every death, but only against the one devised for Him. And there would have been just as much pretext as before for unbelief about the resurrection. So death came upon the body not from Himself, but from the plotting of others, in order that whatever death they brought to the Saviour, that very death He might make to vanish.
It is like a noble wrestler, great in skill and in courage. He does not choose his opponents for himself, lest he give ground for the suspicion that he is afraid of some of them. He leaves the choice to those who are watching, and above all if they happen to be his enemies, so that whomever they match him against, that man he may throw down, and so be believed stronger than them all.
So too the Life of all, our Lord and Saviour Christ, did not devise a death for His body, lest He should appear to be afraid of some other death. He accepted instead the death that came from others, and above all from His enemies, the death they thought dreadful and dishonorable and not to be faced. This He took upon the Cross and endured, so that when it too was undone, He Himself might be believed to be the Life, and the power of death might be brought wholly to nothing.
And so something marvelous and beyond all expectation came to pass. The death they thought to inflict as a disgrace was itself the monument of victory over death. This is why He did not endure the death of John, whose head was severed, nor was He sawn apart as Isaiah was. He kept His body undivided and whole even in death, so that no pretext might be given to those who would divide the Church.
§ 25
So much, then, for those outside, who pile up arguments for themselves. But suppose one of our own people also asks why He endured the Cross and no other death, not out of love of dispute, but out of love of learning. Let him hear this: no other way than this was good for us, and the Lord endured it well for our sake. For if He came to bear the curse that lay upon us, how else could He have become a curse, unless He received the death appointed for a curse? And that death is the Cross. For so it is written: "Cursed is everyone who hangs upon a tree."
Again, consider that the Lord's death is the ransom of all, and that by His death the middle wall of partition is broken down and the calling of the nations comes about. How then could He have called us to Himself, unless He had been crucified? For it is only upon a cross that a man dies with his hands spread out. So it was fitting for the Lord to endure this also, and to stretch out His hands. With the one He might draw the ancient people, and with the other those from among the nations, and so join them both together in Himself. This is what He Himself said, showing by what manner of death He was to ransom all: "When I am lifted up, I shall draw all men to Myself."
And again, the devil, the enemy of our race, having fallen from heaven, wanders about the air here below. There he holds authority over the demons who are his fellows in disobedience, working illusions through them upon those whom he deceives, and trying to hinder those who are going up. It is of him that the Apostle says: "according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now works in the sons of disobedience."
But the Lord came to cast the devil down, and to cleanse the air, and to open for us the way up into the heavens, as the Apostle said, "through the veil, that is to say, His flesh." And this had to come about through death. By what other death could it have come about, than by one that took place in the air, by which I mean the Cross? For only the man who is put to death upon a cross dies in the air. With good reason, then, the Lord endured this death.
For being lifted up in this way, He cleansed the air of the malice of the devil and of every kind of demon, saying: "I beheld Satan fall as lightning from heaven." And He made new the way up into the heavens, saying again: "Lift up your gates, you rulers, and be lifted up, you everlasting doors." For it was not the Word Himself who needed the gates to be opened, since He is Lord of all; nor was anything among created things shut against its own Maker. It was we who needed it, we whom He carried up by His own body. For as He offered that body to death on behalf of all, so through it He opened again for us the way up into the heavens.