Tertullian · a new plain-English translation from the original language
[1] We have too, in the scriptures, a mention of garments that we may allegorize toward the hope of the flesh, since the Apocalypse of John says, "These are they who have not defiled their garments with women" — meaning, of course, virgins, and those who have castrated themselves for the kingdom of heaven. [2] So they shall be in white robes, that is, in the brightness of unwedded flesh. And in the gospel the wedding garment can be recognized as the holiness of the flesh. [3] So too Isaiah, teaching what fast the Lord has chosen, adds concerning the reward of goodness: "Then your light shall break forth early, and your garments shall rise quickly" — meaning, surely, not a silk gown or a cloak but flesh, he foretold the rising of the flesh that is to be resurrected out of the setting of death. [4] Well then, we too have an allegorical defense of bodily resurrection ready to hand. For when we read, "My people, go into your storerooms for a little while, until my wrath pass by," the storerooms will be tombs, in which those who at the end of the age fall under the last wrath by the violence of antichrist will have to rest a little while. [5] Or why did he use the word "storerooms" rather than the name of any other receiving-place, unless because in storerooms salted flesh is kept laid up for use, to be brought out from there in its own time? For in just the same way bodies dosed with the seasonings of burial are set apart in mausoleums and monuments, to come forth from there when the Lord gives the order. [6] And that this is the fitting way to understand it — for what refuges will save us from the wrath of God except these? — is shown by this very phrase, "until the wrath pass by" — the wrath which will destroy antichrist — he shows that after the wrath the flesh will come forth from the tomb into which it had been carried before the wrath: for nothing else is brought out of storerooms than what was put into them, and after the uprooting of antichrist the resurrection will be set in motion.