The Living Christ and the Powerless Idols

Those who do not believe in the resurrection furnish a strong proof against themselves. All the spirits and gods they worship do not drive out Christ, who, they say, is dead. On the contrary, Christ proves them all to be dead. For it is true that a dead man can exert no power. Yet the Savior every day does so many works. He draws people to religion, persuades them to virtue, teaches them about immortality, and leads them on to a desire for heavenly things. He reveals the knowledge of the Father, breathes into them strength to face death, shows himself to each one, and drives out the godlessness of idolatry. The gods and spirits of the unbelievers can do none of these things. Rather, they show themselves to be dead at the presence of Christ, their show reduced to powerlessness and emptiness. By the sign of the cross, on the other hand, all magic is stopped and all witchcraft brought to nothing. All the idols are being deserted and abandoned, every unruly pleasure is checked, and everyone is looking up from earth to heaven. Whom, then, should one call dead? Christ, who is doing so many works? But working does not belong to the dead. Or the one who exerts no power at all, but lies there as if lifeless? That belongs, in the very nature of things, to the idols and spirits, dead as they are. [a]

For the Son of God is “living and active.” He works day by day and brings about the salvation of all. But death is proved every day to have lost all its power, and it is the idols and spirits that are proved to be dead, rather than Christ. So from now on no one can doubt any longer the resurrection of his body. Whoever disbelieves the resurrection of the Lord’s body seems not to know the power of the Word and Wisdom of God. For if he took a body to himself at all, and made it his own, as our argument showed was consistent with reason, what was the Lord to do with it? Or what was to be the end of that body, once the Word had come down upon it? It could not help dying, since it was mortal and was to be offered to death on behalf of all; that was the very purpose for which the Savior fashioned it for himself. But it could not remain dead, because it had been made the temple of life. So, while it died as mortal, it came to life again because of the Life within it. And the works are a sign of its resurrection.