The Whole Body Joined and Knit Together

The fifth passage he has picked out for blame is the most important. It is the one in which I explain the apostle’s statement: “From whom the whole body, fitly joined and knit together through every joint that serves it, according to the working in due measure of each several part, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.” Here I summed up in a short sentence Origen’s explanation, which is very long and goes over the same ideas in different words, yet in such a way as to leave out none of his illustrations or his assertions. And when I had come to the end, I added: “And so in the restoration of all things, when Jesus Christ, the true physician, comes to restore to health the whole body of the church, which now lies scattered and torn apart, each one will receive his proper place according to the measure of his faith and his recognition of the Son of God. (The word ‘recognize’ implies that he had known him before and afterward had ceased to know him.) And he will then begin to be what he once had been. “Yet this will not be in such a way that, as another heresy holds, all are placed in one rank and, by a process of renewal, all become angels. Rather, each member, according to its own measure and office, will become perfect. For instance, the apostate angel will begin to be what he was by his creation, and man, who had been cast out of paradise, will be restored again to the tending of paradise,” and so on. [a]