Tertullian · a new plain-English translation from the original language
[1] But an end will be put to this whole dispute by the Lord's own pronouncement: 'They shall be,' he says, 'as the angels' — not marrying, because not dying either, and so subject to no further necessity of bodily condition; since the angels too, at one time, existed as men do, eating and drinking and offering their feet to be washed: they had put on a human surface while their own substance remained safe within. [2] So then, if the angels, made as it were men, took on, in the same substance of spirit, a fleshly manner of dealing, why should not men also, made as it were angels, take on, in the same substance of flesh, a spiritual arrangement — [3] no more bound to the customary practices of flesh under their angelic dress than the angels were bound to the customary practices of spirit under their human dress; and just as it does not follow that the angels ceased to abide in spirit merely because they did not abide in the customary practices of spirit, so it does not follow that men will cease to abide in flesh merely because they do not abide in the customary practices of flesh. [4] Note, finally, that he did not say, 'they shall be angels' — lest he deny that they are men — but 'as the angels,' so as to preserve them as men: he did not remove the substance to which he attributed the likeness.