Tertullian · a new plain-English translation from the original language
[1] Having sketched, then, this much of the outlines of the divine powers — a god who works in parables no less than one who speaks in them — let us come now to his very edicts and decrees, since it is exactly here that we mark off this next division of our subject. [2] For having begun from the authority of the flesh — whether it is such that the recovery of what has decayed falls within its competence — and having then pursued the power of God — whether it is such as habitually confers recovery on a thing dissolved — [3] now, if we have proved both points, I would have you inquire further into the cause: whether some cause exists substantial enough to establish the flesh's rising as a necessity and, on every reckoning, a debt owed to reason. Because it remains to be said: even if the flesh is capable of being restored, even if divinity is competent to restore it, still a cause for the restoration must stand in front of both. [4] Take, then, the cause too — you who learn of God that he is as thoroughly good as he is just: good from his own nature, just from the necessity of ours. For had man not sinned, he would have known God only as good, purely from the property of his nature; but as it is, man suffers him also as just, from the necessity of man's own case — and yet even in this God remains good precisely by being just. [5] For in aiding the good and punishing the wicked, exhibiting justice on both counts, he offers both verdicts in service of goodness, avenging the one on this side, rewarding the other on that. [6] But you will learn more fully, against Marcion, whether this is the whole of God. For now, ours is such a God: judge deservedly, because Lord; Lord deservedly, because author; author deservedly, because God. [7] Hence that heretic of theirs — whoever he is — is deservedly no judge, for he is no Lord; deservedly no Lord, for he is no author; and I no longer know whether he is even God, since he is neither author by virtue of being God, nor Lord by virtue of being author. [8] If, then, it is entirely fitting for a God who is Lord and author to appoint judgment upon man over this very question — whether man took care to acknowledge and observe his Lord and author, or did not — and if the resurrection is what settles that judgment, then this will be the whole cause — indeed the necessity — of the resurrection: a judgment's appointment perfectly fitting to God. [9] As to its disposition, consider whether the divine tribunal presides over both human substances alike when it comes to judging — soul as much as flesh: for whatever is fitting to be judged is equally entitled to be raised again. [10] We say that God's judgment must be believed full and perfect from the first — since it is final and, from that point, everlasting — and thus just in this respect too, that it falls short in nothing; and thus worthy of God in this respect too, that, answering to his great patience, it is full and complete. And so the fullness and perfection of the judgment can consist in nothing but the presentation of the whole man. [11] The whole man, further, is produced by the union of both substances, and it is therefore in both that the man who must be judged whole has to be presented — since he did not live except as a whole. As he lived, then, so must he be judged, because it is for what he lived that he is to be judged. For life is the ground of judgment, to be reckoned through as many substances as it was lived through.