§ 26
The death upon the Cross, endured for us, was therefore fitting and suitable. Its cause has shown itself reasonable at every point, and the reasoning behind it is sound: the salvation of all had to come about in no other way than through the Cross. For not even so did He leave Himself unseen, not even upon the Cross. On the contrary, and beyond all measure, He made creation itself bear witness to the presence of its own Maker.
He did not suffer His own temple, the body, to remain long as it was. He merely showed it to be dead, by the contact of death with it, and then on the third day He raised it at once. And He carried away, as His monuments of victory and His triumphs over death, the incorruption and impassibility that had come to be in that body.
He could have roused the body at the very moment of death and shown it alive again. But here too the Saviour saw well ahead, and did not do so. For someone might have said that it had not died at all, or that death had not come into full contact with it, had He displayed the Resurrection at once. And perhaps, if the interval between the death and the rising had been a slight one, the glory of that incorruption would have been left obscure. And so, in order that the body might be shown to be dead, the Word waited through one intervening day, and on the third He showed it to all incorruptible. To prove the death in the body, then, He raised it on the third day.
But so that He might not be disbelieved, as carrying not that same body but another, He did not wait to raise it until it had lain a long while and decayed completely. A man might well distrust what he saw, simply because of the lapse of time, and forget what had happened. For this reason He waited no more than three days, and did not long keep in suspense those who had heard Him speak of the Resurrection.
Instead, while the word was still ringing in their ears, while their eyes were still watching and their minds still hung in expectation, and while those who had put Him to death were still alive on earth and on the spot, witnesses themselves to the death of the Lord's body, after an interval of three days the Son of God Himself showed that body, once dead, to be immortal and incorruptible. It was made plain to all that the body had not died from any weakness in the nature of the Word who dwelt in it, but so that in it death might be utterly abolished by the power of the Saviour.
§ 27
That death has been undone, that the Cross has become the victory over him, that he no longer has strength but is truly dead: of all this there is no small token, and indeed clear proof. It is that death is despised by all the disciples of Christ. They all advance against him and no longer fear him, but tread him down as dead by the sign of the Cross and by faith in Christ.
Long ago, before the divine sojourn of the Saviour took place, death was fearful even to the saints themselves, and all men mourned the dying as those who were perishing. But now that the Saviour has raised His body, death is no longer fearful. All who believe in Christ trample him down as nothing, and they choose to die rather than deny their faith in Christ. For they know in truth that in dying they are not destroyed, but live, and become incorruptible through the Resurrection.
And the devil, who once leapt in malice upon death, now that its pangs are loosed, is left the only one truly dead. Here is the evidence of it. Before men believe in Christ they look on death as fearful and shrink from him. But once they have come over to His faith and His teaching, they despise death so completely that they run to meet him eagerly, and become witnesses to the Resurrection the Saviour has accomplished against him. For even those still young in years hasten to die, and not men only but women also train themselves against him by their disciplines. So weak has he become that the very women he once deceived now make sport of him as dead and paralyzed.
When a tyrant has been defeated in war by a lawful king and bound hand and foot, all who pass by mock him from then on, striking him and deriding him. They are no longer afraid of his fury and his savagery, because of the king who has conquered him. So too, now that death has been conquered by the Saviour on the Cross and held up to public shame, and bound hand and foot, all who are in Christ trample him as they pass. Bearing witness to Christ they scoff at death and taunt him, saying what was written against him long ago: "O death, where is your victory? O grave, where is your sting?"
§ 28
Is this, then, a small proof of the weakness of death? Or is it a slight demonstration of the victory the Saviour has won over him, when boys and young girls in Christ look past this present life and train themselves to die? By nature a man shrinks from death and from the dissolution of the body. But here is the most startling thing of all: once he has put on the faith of the Cross, he despises even what is natural to him, and for Christ's sake does not fear death.
Consider an example. Fire burns by nature. Suppose someone were to say that there is a substance which does not fear its burning, but rather shows the fire to be weak, as the asbestos among the Indians is said to do. Then if a man who disbelieved the report wished to put it to the test, he would wrap himself in that fireproof material, go up to the fire, and so be assured of the weakness of the fire. Or again, if a man wished to see the tyrant in his bonds, he would go over into the country and dominion of the conquerors. There he would see the man who was a terror to others reduced to weakness.
So too, if a man is still unbelieving after all this, after so many who have become martyrs in Christ, and after the scorn poured upon death every day by those who are illustrious in Christ, and if even then his mind is in doubt whether death has been brought to nothing and has come to his end, he does well to marvel at so great a thing.
Only let him not harden himself into unbelief, nor grow shameless in the face of what is so plain. But just as the man who takes the asbestos knows that the fire has no hold upon it, and the man who wishes to see the tyrant bound goes over into the dominion of the conqueror, so let the man who doubts the victory over death receive the faith of Christ, and come over fully to His teaching. Then he will see the weakness of death, and the triumph won over him. For many who once disbelieved and mocked came afterwards to believe, and despised death so far that they became martyrs for Christ Himself.
§ 29
Now if death is trampled down by the sign of the Cross and by faith in Christ, then before the judgment seat of truth it must be plain that this is the work of none other than Christ Himself. He it is who has displayed the monuments of victory and the triumphs over death, and who has made him weak. And if death was strong before, and fearful for that reason, but is now despised, after the sojourn of the Saviour and the death and Resurrection of His body, then it must be evident that he has been brought to nothing and conquered by the very Christ who went up upon the Cross.
When the sun rises after the night and the whole region of earth is lit by him, no one doubts that the sun who has spread his light everywhere is the same who has driven away the darkness and given light to all things. So too, death has been despised and trodden down from the time when the saving manifestation of the Saviour in the body took place, and His end upon the Cross. It must then be quite plain that the Saviour who appeared in the body is Himself the one who has brought death to nothing, and who day by day displays the monuments of victory over him in His own disciples.
For a man may see people weak by nature leaping forward to meet death, not cowering before his corruption, nor dreading the descent into Hades, but with eager soul calling him out to the challenge, not flinching at torture, but for Christ's sake choosing the rush upon death in preference to life here. Or he may even become an eyewitness of men and women and young children rushing and leaping upon death for the sake of the religion of Christ.
Seeing all this, who is so simple, or so unbelieving, or so maimed in mind, as not to see and conclude that Christ, to whom these people bear witness, Himself supplies and gives to each one the victory over death? He it is who makes death weak in every one who holds His faith and bears the sign of the Cross. For a man who sees the serpent trodden underfoot, knowing well how fierce he was before, no longer doubts that he is dead and has wholly lost his strength. He doubts only if his mind is turned away, and if not even his bodily senses are sound.
And who, seeing a lion made a plaything by little children, fails to know that he is either dead or has lost all his power? Just as the eyes can see that these things are true, so, now that death is made sport of and despised by those who believe in Christ, let no one doubt any longer, and let no one be unbelieving, that death has been brought to nothing by Christ, and that his corruption has been dissolved and brought to a stop.
§ 30
That death has been brought to nothing, and that the Lord's Cross is the monument of victory over him, is no small proof from what has been said already. But there is the Resurrection of the body to immortality, accomplished thereafter by Christ, the common Saviour of all and the true Life. Of this the demonstration from what can be seen is clearer than any argument, at least to those whose mind's eye is sound.
For if death has been brought to nothing, as the argument has shown, and if all men trample him because of the Lord, then much more did the Lord Himself first trample him with His own body, and bring him to nothing. And once death had been slain by Him, what had to follow but that the body should rise, and be displayed as the monument of victory over him? Or how could death have been shown to be brought to nothing, unless the Lord's body had risen?
But if this demonstration of the Resurrection is not enough for someone, let him at least be assured of what is said from the things that happen before his eyes. For if a man once dead can do nothing, if his influence reaches only to the tomb and there ceases, and if deeds and dealings with men belong to the living alone, then let anyone who wishes look, and let him be the judge, confessing the truth from what he sees.
Since the Saviour works so many things among men, and day by day is invisibly persuading, from every quarter, so great a multitude from Greece and from foreign lands alike to come over to His faith, and all men to obey His teaching, will anyone still hold his mind in doubt whether a Resurrection has been accomplished, and whether Christ lives, or rather is Himself the Life?
Is it the mark of a dead man to prick the minds of men, so that they deny the laws of their fathers and bow before the teaching of Christ? Or how, if He is not at work, since that is what belongs to a dead man, does He stay from their activity those who are active and alive, so that the adulterer commits adultery no more, the murderer kills no more, the wrongdoer is grasping no longer, and the ungodly man is godly from then on?
And how, if He did not rise but is dead, does He drive away and pursue and cast down those false gods whom the unbelievers call living, and the demons they worship? For wherever Christ is named, and His faith, there all idolatry is pulled down and every deceit of demons is exposed. No demon can bear even the name; at the mere hearing of it he takes flight and is gone. This is not the work of a dead man, but of one who lives, and above all of God.
Besides, it would be absurd to say that the demons He drives out and the idols He brings to nothing are alive, and that He Himself is dead: He who chases them away, who by His own power keeps them from so much as appearing, and whom they all confess to be the Son of God.
§ 31
Those who disbelieve the Resurrection put forward a strong proof against themselves, in that not one of all the demons, nor of all the gods they worship, drives out this Christ whom they call dead; rather, Christ proves every one of them to be dead. For if it is true that a dead man can do nothing, and yet the Saviour works so many things day by day: He draws men to godliness and persuades them to virtue. He teaches them of immortality and leads them up into a longing for heavenly things. He reveals the knowledge of the Father, breathes into them strength against death, shows Himself to each one, and pulls down the godlessness of idols.
The gods and demons of the unbelievers can do none of these things. At the presence of Christ they rather become dead, and all their show is left idle and empty. By the sign of the Cross all magic is stopped and all sorcery brought to nothing. The idols are all deserted and left behind, every unreasoning pleasure is checked, and faith looks up from earth to heaven. If all that is so, whom, then, would one call dead? Christ, who works so many things? But working is not what belongs to the dead. Or the one who does nothing at all, but lies as though without life? That is what belongs to the demons and the idols, dead as they are.
For the Son of God is living and active, and day by day He works and brings about the salvation of all. But death is proved day by day to have lost his strength, and the idols and the demons are shown to be dead rather than Christ. And so no one can any longer hesitate about the Resurrection of His body.
The man who disbelieves the Resurrection of the Lord's body would seem not to know the power of the Word and Wisdom of God. For if He took a body to Himself at all, and made it His own in reasonable consequence, as the argument has shown, what was the Lord to do with it? Or what end had the body to come to, once the Word had descended upon it?
It could not fail to die, since it was mortal, and since it was to be offered to death on behalf of all. It was for this very purpose that the Saviour fashioned it for Himself. But it was not possible for it to remain dead, because it had become the temple of Life. And so it died as mortal, but came to life again because of the Life within it; and the works are the token of its Resurrection.
§ 32
But if His having risen is disbelieved merely because He is not seen, it is time for those who refuse belief to deny the course of nature as well. For it is the peculiar property of God not to be seen, and yet to be known from His works, as has already been said above. If the works are not there, they do well to disbelieve what does not appear. But if the works cry aloud and show it plainly, why do they willingly deny the life of the Resurrection, manifest as it is?
Even if they are maimed in their understanding, they may still see with the outward senses the undeniable power and Godhead of Christ. For even if a blind man does not see the sun, yet when he takes hold of the warmth that comes from it, he knows that the sun is above the earth. So too, even if those who contradict us do not yet believe, being still blind to the truth, yet since they at least know His power through others who do believe, let them not deny the Godhead of Christ, nor the Resurrection He has accomplished.
For it is plain that if Christ were dead, He could not be driving out the demons and despoiling the idols; the demons would not have obeyed a dead man. But if they are plainly driven out at the naming of His name, then it must be evident that He is not dead, especially since the demons, seeing what men cannot see, could have known if Christ were dead, and could have refused Him all obedience. But as it is, what irreligious men do not believe, the demons see: that He is God. And so they flee and fall at His feet, saying what they uttered when He was in the body: "We know You, who You are; You are the Holy One of God"; and, "Ah, what have we to do with You, Son of God? I beg You, do not torment me."
Since, then, the demons confess Him, and His works bear witness to Him every day, it must be evident that the Saviour raised His own body, and that He is the true Son of God. Let no one brazen it out against the truth. He is from Him, being, as indeed from a Father, His own Word and Wisdom and Power. In ages later He took a body for the salvation of all. He taught the world concerning the Father, He brought death to nothing, and He bestowed incorruption upon all by the promise of the Resurrection. He raised His own body as the first-fruits of that promise, and by the sign of the Cross He displayed it as the monument of victory over death and over the corruption that belongs to him.