Tertullian · a new plain-English translation from the original language
[1] Accordingly, when he says, Therefore, always confident, and knowing that while we sojourn in the body we are exiled from the Lord: for it is by trust that we walk, not by direct vision — it is clear that this too has nothing to do with some dimming of the flesh as though it were separating us from the Lord. [2] For here too it is an exhortation to disdain this life that is being turned to, since we are exiled from the Lord as long as we live, advancing by faith and not by sight, that is, by hope and not by the reality itself. [3] And so he adds, But confident, and counting it better rather to be exiled from the body and to sojourn with the Lord — that is, so that we might advance by sight rather than by faith, by the thing itself rather than by hope. [4] You see how here too he refers contempt of the body to the excellence of martyrdoms: for no one who is exiled from the body immediately sojourns with the Lord except by the special privilege of martyrdom, bound, of course, for paradise, not for the underworld. [5] But had the apostle run short of words for signifying departure from the body, or does he also speak this way for a reason, in a novel sense? Wishing to signify a temporary absence from the body, he said we are exiled from it, since one who is exiled will also return to his dwelling. [6] From there he moves to all alike: We are eager, he says, whether exiled or sojourning, to be pleasing to God: for we must all be laid bare before the tribunal of Christ Jesus. If every one, then whole persons: if every one, then both the inner and the outer, that is, both souls and bodies as well. So that each one, he says, may receive back the things done through the body according to what he has done, whether good or evil. [7] How, I ask, are we to read this passage now? For he has constructed it, as it were confusedly, by a hyperbaton: is it 'the things to be received back through the body,' or 'the things done through the body'? [8] But whether it is 'the things to be received back through the body,' bodily resurrection is beyond doubt; or whether it is 'the things done through the body,' then certainly they are to be weighed through the body by which they were also done. [9] So this whole discussion of the apostle, from its beginning, woven together with such a conclusion by which the resurrection of the flesh is shown, must be understood according to what is consistent with that conclusion.