Tertullian · a new plain-English translation from the original language
[1] To begin with, when he says he has come for this, that he might save what was lost, what do you say was lost? Man, without doubt. Wholly, or in part? Wholly, of course, since the transgression -- which is the cause of man's ruin -- was committed as much by the soul's prompting through desire as by the flesh's act through tasting, and so it wrote the whole man into the indictment of transgression, and thereby rightly filled him up with ruin. [2] Wholly, then, will he be saved who was wholly ruined by sinning -- unless that sheep too is lost without a body and called back without a body. For if its flesh as well as its soul -- which is the whole animal -- gets borne home upon the herdsman's own shoulders, then this is surely an example of man's restoration in both substances at once. [3] Or how unworthy of God, to reduce half a man to salvation -- to do practically less than a man would do, when even among worldly rulers full pardon is always the mark of clemency! Will the devil be reckoned mightier in his wrong against man, crushing him whole, while God is proclaimed weaker, not raising him whole? And yet the apostle himself suggests that where sin abounded, grace abounded still more. [4] How, in the end, will he be held saved who could also be called lost? Lost in the flesh, saved in the soul, you say -- except that the soul too must then be reckoned among the lost, if it is to be capable of being made saved: for what will need to be made saved is precisely what was lost. [5] Further: either we grant the soul's immortality, so that when lost it is believed not to perish but to be punished -- that is, sent to Gehenna -- and if so, then salvation will no longer look to the soul, which is saved of its own nature by its immortality, but rather to the flesh, which everyone agrees is capable of perishing; [6] or, if the soul too is perishable, that is, not immortal, as the flesh is, then that same form of salvation will have to apply equally to the flesh, which is likewise mortal and perishable, insofar as it is what the Lord will save when it perishes. [7] I do not wish now to drag the matter back and forth on a contentious rope, over which substance ruin properly claims -- since salvation, on either side, marks the man out in both substances equally. For look: from whichever substance you presume man to have perished, he has not perished from the other; he will therefore be saved already in respect of the one from which he did not perish, and he will nonetheless be made saved in respect of the one from which he did perish. [8] There you have the restoration of the whole man, since the Lord will save whatever of him is lost, and whatever of him is not lost he certainly will not let be lost. [9] Why then do you still doubt the security of both substances, when the one is bound to attain salvation and the other is not bound to lose it? And yet the Lord still further spells out the sense of the matter, saying, "I have descended not to enact my own wish but the wish of him who dispatched me, the Father." What wish is that, I ask? "That of everything he has entrusted to me, I should let nothing slip away, but bring it back to life on the final day." [10] What had Christ received from the Father except what he had also put on? Man, without doubt -- the fabric of flesh and soul together. Neither of these, then, which he received, will he suffer to perish -- indeed not any part of either, indeed not the smallest part; for if the flesh is a small part, then he will lose no flesh either, because it is no small part -- nothing at all, because it is nothing at all. But if he will not also raise the flesh on the last day, then it is no small part of man he will suffer to perish, but I would say almost the whole, for so great a share it is. [11] Pressing further, "This is the Father's will, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should possess life everlasting, and I myself will bring him back to life on the final day" -- he rounds out the complete measure of rising again: for he apportions to each element, through its own function, its fitting reward of salvation -- to the flesh, through which the Son was looked upon, and to the soul, through which he was believed in. [12] "So," you say, "the promise belongs to those by whom Christ was actually seen." Let it be exactly so -- for the same hope has flowed from that to us as well: since if the works of flesh and soul were then fruitful for those who saw and therefore believed, how much more for us! For more blessed indeed are those who never saw and nevertheless trust -- and even if the resurrection of the flesh had been denied to those who saw, it would certainly still belong to us who are more blessed. For how could they be blessed if in part doomed to perish?