THEOSISJohn Chrysostom
"For this," he says, "we say to you by the word of the Lord." He was about to say something extraordinary, and therefore he added confirmation. He says, "by the word of the Lord," that is, we do not speak from ourselves, but after learning from Christ: "We who are alive, who remain until the coming of the Lord, shall not precede those who have fallen asleep."
He says the same in the Epistle to the Corinthians: "in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye" (1 Cor 15:52). But here, to confirm the resurrection, he presents the manner in which it must take place. Since the matter appears difficult to accomplish, he shows that the dead can be caught up as easily as the living.
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By using the expression "we," he does not mean himself, since he was not intending to remain alive until the resurrection. He means the faithful. Therefore he added, "We who are alive, who remain until the coming of the Lord, shall not precede those who have fallen asleep."
It is as though he said: When you hear that those then living will not precede those who have decayed, turned to dust, and died many thousands of years before, do not imagine any difficulty in this. God does it. For Him it is as easy to bring forward those who remain whole as those who have decayed.
There are indeed some who do not believe this, because they do not know God. But tell me, what is easier, to bring from nonbeing into being, or to raise again what has decayed? Yet what do they say? "Someone suffered shipwreck and drowned. After drowning, he was seized by many fish, and each fish ate a part. Then of these same fish, one was caught in one gulf, another in another, and one was eaten by one man, another by another. Again, the men who ate the fish that had devoured the man died in different countries. Perhaps they themselves were eaten by beasts. How, after such mingling and dispersal, will the man live again? Who will gather this dust?"
Why do you say this, man? Why do you weave chains of empty fictions and suppose that this cannot be resolved? Even if a man had not fallen into the sea, even if he had not been swallowed by a fish, and that fish had not been eaten by thousands of people, but he had been placed in a tomb at burial, and neither worms nor anything else touched him, tell me, how will what has dissolved rise? How will dust and ashes be bound together? Whence will the body's bloom then come? Can this be explained?
If the Greeks doubt this, we can say many things to them. What, then? Among them there are those who teach the transmigration of souls even into plants, trees, and dogs. Tell me, what is easier, to receive one's own body again, or a foreign one? Others also say that bodies decay in fire and that afterward there will be a restoration of garments and shoes. Yet they do not laugh at them. Others introduce atoms.
But we do not address our speech to them, but to the faithful, if those who raise such questions should even be called faithful. Yet let us point to the apostolic teaching that all life arises from decay: all plants, all seeds. Do you not see what a large trunk the fig tree has, what large shoots, and how many leaves, boughs, branches, and roots, spread out and sunk deeply into the earth? Yet it becomes so high and broad from a grain thrown into the earth and decayed. If it had not decayed and broken down, nothing would have grown.
Tell me, how does this happen? The vine also, so pleasing to sight and taste, is born from the same unattractive beginning. Besides this, tell me, does not the same water fall from above? How, then, is it changed into so many forms? This is more wondrous than the resurrection.
There, the seed that draws your attention is what later appears. You see the plant and the perfect likeness between seed and plant. But here, tell me, how does what has the same qualities and the same nature turn into so many forms? In the vine, water becomes wine, and not wine only, but also leaves and sap, because not only the cluster is nourished by it, but the other parts of the vine. In the olive tree, it becomes oil, and many other things which cannot even be described.
And what a wondrous thing! Here it becomes moist, there dry; here sweet, there sour; now astringent, now bitter. How, then, is it changed into so many forms? Show the cause. But you cannot.
Even in yourself, and this is nearer, tell me how the emitted seed is fashioned and transformed into eyes, into ears, into hands, into a heart, and into so many members. Is there not in the body an endless variety of forms, size, qualities, position, powers, and compositions? How many nerves, veins, muscles, bones, membranes, arteries, members, and glands there are! How much else belongs to our nature, about which physicians speak in detail. And all this comes from one seed.
Will it not seem to you far more incomprehensible how something moist and tender is changed into hard and cold bone, how it becomes warm and moist blood, how it becomes a cold and tender nerve, and how it becomes a cold and moist artery? Tell me, how does this happen? Do you not understand it?
Do you not see resurrection and death every day in the ages of life? Where has youth gone? Whence has old age come? How does an old man, who cannot make himself young, beget another, a child, very young? What he cannot give to himself, he gives to another. The same can be seen in trees and animals, although, as it seems, whoever gives something to another must first have what he gives. But only human reason requires this. When God creates, nothing is needed.
If this is so difficult to explain, indeed more than difficult to explain, how mad are those who have now come to my mind, who strive to comprehend the bodiless generation of the Son! No one has ever yet been able to understand what happens daily, what is close at hand, and what has already been investigated a thousand times. How, then, tell me, can one hope to comprehend the ineffable and incomprehensible generation?
Does their mind not grow weak from these vain efforts? Has it not entangled itself in countless perplexities? Has it not fallen silent in amazement? Yet they do not learn from this. Unable to say anything definite about a grape or a fig tree, they discourse about God.
Indeed, tell me, how do leaves and branches develop from this grain of a grape? They were not there before and were not observed there. But they say this comes not from the grain, but from the earth. Why, then, can the earth by itself produce nothing without it? Let us cease from madness.
This comes neither from the earth nor from the grain, but from Him who is Lord of both earth and seeds. Therefore He arranged it so that this happens both through them and without seeds. In this way He reveals His power on the one hand, for which reason He said, "Let the earth bring forth green herb, grass" (Gen 1:11). On the other hand, together with the revelation of His power, He teaches us diligence and work.
Why have we said all this? Not without purpose, but so that we may believe in the resurrection. It is also so that we may not grieve or be vexed if, despite our desire to grasp something with the mind, we again cannot attain it. Rather, wisely restraining and humbling our mind, let us find rest in this: God can do all things and finds no obstacle in anything.
Therefore, having learned this, let us restrain our thoughts and not transgress the limits and boundaries of knowledge laid down for us. "For," he says, "we all have knowledge; but knowledge puffs up, while love builds up" (1 Cor 8:1). I say this not only concerning God, but concerning every thing.
For example, what do you wish to know about the earth? Tell me, what do you know? How great is its extent? What is its size? What is its position? What is its nature? What place does it occupy? Where is it fixed, and on what? You can answer none of this. You can only say that it is cold, dry, and black, and nothing more.
What about the sea? There too you will meet a perplexity that you cannot resolve. You do not know where it begins, where it ends, on what it is borne, on what its bottom rests, what place it occupies, whether solid earth lies beyond it, or whether it ends in water and air. Do you know anything about what is in it? Shall I ask further about the air and the elements? You will say nothing.
But let us rather leave these things. If you wish, let us choose the smallest plant. Tell me, how is this herb born, which bears no fruit and which we all see? Do not water, earth, and dung make up its substance? Why, then, does it appear so beautiful to the eye, and why does it have such wondrous color? Why does this beauty fade? Surely this is not the action of water or earth. Do you see how faith is needed everywhere?
How does the earth give birth? Tell me, what are the pangs of its birth? You can say nothing to this. Study, then, man, what is below, here. Do not labor in vain. Do not be overcurious about heaven. If only it were about heaven, but it is about the Master of heaven!
Tell me, you do not know the earth from which you were born, on which you were raised, on which you live, on which you walk, and without which you cannot even breathe. Yet you are curious to know such distant things? Truly man is vanity! If someone ordered you to descend into the depth and learn what is at the bottom of the sea, you would reject the command. Yet you yourself, without any compulsion, wish to search out the unsearchable abyss.
Do not be high-minded, I beg you. Let us sail on the surface. Let us not follow the pull of speculation, lest we quickly grow weary and sink. Using divine Scripture as a ship, let us unfurl the sails of faith. If we sail on it, the word of God will be our helmsman. But if we sail on human reasonings, there will be no helmsman. For which of those who sail in this way is aided by a helmsman?
Therefore a double danger will threaten us: on the one hand, that there will be no ship, and on the other, that there will be no helmsman. If a vessel without a helmsman is exposed to danger, what hope of salvation is there when neither is present? Let us not expose ourselves to manifest danger, but let us sail in a safe place, held fast by the sacred anchor. Thus, despite the heavy cargo, we shall reach the quiet harbor in complete safety and receive the blessings prepared for those who love Him in Jesus our Lord, with whom to the Father, together with the Holy Spirit, be glory unto the ages of ages. Amen.
The prophets, wishing to show the reliability of what they were about to say, first of all say: "The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw" (Isa 1:1), or, "The words of Jeremiah, to whom the word of the Lord came" (Jer 1:1). Again: "For thus the Lord spoke to me" (Isa 8:11), and similar expressions.
Many also saw God Himself sitting, as far as it was possible for them to see (Isa 6:1). But Paul, who did not see Him sitting, but had Christ Himself speaking within him, spoke differently. Instead of saying, "For thus the Lord spoke to me," he said, "Do you seek proof that Christ speaks in me?" (2 Cor 13:3). Again he says, "Paul, by the will of God, an Apostle of Jesus Christ" (2 Cor 1:1), showing that he says nothing from himself, because an envoy conveys only the words of the one who sent him. Again: "I think that I also have the Spirit of God" (1 Cor 7:40).
Nevertheless, he uttered all this by the inspiration of the Spirit. Yet what he now says, he heard verbally from God, just as he secretly heard what he said in his discourse with the Ephesian elders: "It is more blessed to give than to receive" (Acts 20:35). Let us see, then, what he says here: "This we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who remain until the coming of the Lord, shall not precede those who have fallen asleep."