The Nature of Resurrection and Transformation

Otherwise it is not so. He spoke of nature, from which both those from this earth and the heavenly ones and those called earthly come; but no longer are both of them earthly. Therefore, it is necessary to pay attention to this: that the Lord from heaven is not called 'the heavenly ones,' and the heavenly ones from earth are not 'the Lord from heaven.' He speaks of an image of the earthly, namely the earthly conduct, and an image of the heavenly, namely the heavenly citizenship, so that instead of having imitated the disobedience of Adam, we might imitate also the obedience of the Son of God, having obeyed.

Many of the heretics draw others toward this regarding the resurrection through much folly. For he did not say that flesh and blood do not rise, but rather that they will not inherit the kingdom of God. He excluded the kingdom of the Son of God, not the grace of the resurrection. Therefore, what he says is this: that flesh, being flesh, does not inherit, and blood, being blood, does not inherit; for as long as flesh is flesh, it is corruptible. But having put on incorruptibility, having laid aside the weakness of the flesh, it becomes something else, that is, incorruptible. He proved what he had said before this, for he calls the kingdom incorruption, but calls the mortality in this age corruption. Thus, the opposite of the opposites does not inherit.

He made it manifest that many are trumpets, for having remembered the last, he understood also the first. And the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. If the dead are incorruptible and they themselves shall be changed, it is manifest. What is the need, if we also shall be changed? Or, at any rate, he said that the incorruptible is common to all, while the 'we shall be changed' alludes now to the change into something better; therefore he also said this concerning the righteous.

Having said this and having shown the body, he hemmed in the heretics who say there is no resurrection of the flesh but of the soul. For these also blaspheme concerning the divine economy, thinking that Christ was taken up not in truth but in a phantom, which is senseless. For if he did not have flesh, what is it that died and was buried and was raised? And if these things were a phantom, then surely we also die in a phantom. The incorruptible is indeed common to those who shall be raised, but the changing alone is the particular property of the saints, which shows the change into something better. As for the 'we', it is superfluous, unless he intends to signify concerning the saints, instead of those righteous around us, just as elsewhere, having said 'we', he signified the saints around him, the living ones. The collection is called a collection for the encouragement of the poor.