Men and Angels Made One Flock

You see how much difference he makes between human souls and the angels: no more than the difference between the one sheep and the others, or between one drachma and the rest. But a little further on he adds something more. He says: [a] “As for what the apostle says, ‘That he might create in himself one new man out of the two, so making peace,’ this seems to fit the case of Jews and Gentiles even better than the earlier passage. Yet it may be adapted to our understanding of the passage in this way. We may suppose him to mean that man, who was made after the image and likeness of God, is after his reconciliation to receive the same form which the angels have now, and which he has lost. And he calls him a new man because he is renewed day by day and is to live in the new world.” [c]

According to him, then, human souls differ from the angels as one sheep from another, or as one drachma from another. And people will have hereafter the form that the angels have now, which people once had and lost. If, then, there is no difference between them in nature, in shape or in form, I wonder that our learned man is not ashamed to condemn another person for saying what he himself has said, especially when you notice that this is an explanation not of the common Latin translation but of the apostle’s real meaning. But see what is added further on in the same place. He goes straight on: [d] “And the creation of the new man will be fully and completely perfected when things in heaven and things on earth are joined in one, and we have access to the Father in one spirit, in one feeling and mind. Paul suggests something similar to all thoughtful readers in another letter (though some do not accept it as his), in these words: ‘All these, having had witness borne to their faith, did not receive the promise, since God had provided something better for us, so that apart from us they should not be made perfect.’ “For this reason the whole creation groans and is in labor in sympathy with us, who groan in this tent, who have conceived in the womb from the fear of God, and are in grief, and wait for the revealing of the sons of God. And it waits to be set free from the futility of the bondage to which it is now subject, so that there may be one shepherd and one flock, and that the petition in the Lord’s Prayer may be fulfilled: ‘Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.’” [e]

We are to understand, then, that things in heaven and things on earth, that is, angels and human beings, once had one form and one sheepfold, and that so it will be in their future restoration. For Christ will come to make both into one flock, and human beings are to be what the angels are now, and what they themselves, that is, their souls, were before. I ask you, then: how can you have the face to mock, as we lately saw you do so pleasantly — or rather not pleasantly at all, but coarsely — those poor women who struck their bellies and thighs and said that after the resurrection they would not have these frail bodies, but would be like the angels and have a life like theirs? With bitter ridicule you rebuke these poor women for saying the very things that are now brought forward as passages from these selected Commentaries of yours. Does this not seem to you rather like a man accusing another of theft while he himself has the stolen thing hidden in the fold of his toga? It is as if, after railing against the supposed thief in a long and magnificent closing speech, after bringing forward witnesses and taking the oath in due form, he should have the stolen article pulled out of his own toga, the very thing he supposed he had convicted another man of stealing.

There is another point. You find fault with others because, when they are asked questions about such matters, they do not answer at once, but hesitate and use gestures rather than words. Yet you say that the apostle does much the same thing; at least, that he ‘hints at’ something of this kind to thoughtful readers in his letter. If Paul does not plainly declare these things but only hints at them, and that not to everybody but only to thoughtful people, why do you, whom we are now bringing to see your own errors, laugh at us poor creatures? For when it comes to things the apostle has not plainly declared, we say either that we do not know or that we are in doubt; and since what we get is not a full understanding but a hint of his meaning, we do not declare an explanation but suggest one. If the things which eye has not seen nor ear heard, and which have not entered into the heart of man, have been revealed to you; if you have reached what is perfect, and what is in part has been done away with for you; then shout aloud and proclaim the truth, and make quite plain the things you say the apostle hints at. For now, as you tell us, not only what he hints at but what he asserts falls under your ban. All these things on which you now want us to pronounce an anathema are the very things you had ascribed to the apostle in your explanation of his words, and had taught as contained within the scope of what he says. [h]