Tag: Death

The soul lives on — death is not an escape from God

O fool, thou dost not absolutely die; nor, when dead, dost thou escape the lofty One.  Although thou shouldst arrange that when dead thou perceivest nothing, thou shalt foolishly be overcome.  God the Creator of the world liveth, whose laws cry out that the dead are in existence.  But thou, whilst recklessly thou seekest to live without God, judgest that in death is extinction, and thinkest that it is absolute.  God has not ordered it as thou thinkest, that the dead are forgetful of what they have previously done.  Now has the governor made for us receptacles of death, and after our ashes we shall behold them.  Thou art stripped, O foolish one, who thinkest that by death thou art not, and hast made thy Ruler and Lord to be able to do nothing.  But death is not a mere vacuity, if thou reconsiderest in thine heart.  Thou mayest know that He is to be desired, for late thou shalt perceive Him.  Thou wast the ruler of the flesh; certainly flesh ruled not thee.  Freed from it, the former is buried; thou art here.  Rightly is mortal man separated from the flesh.  Therefore mortal eyes will not be able to be equalled (to divine things).  Thus our depth keeps us from the secret of God.  Give thou now, whilst in weakness thou art dying, the honour to God, and believe that Christ will bring thee back living from the dead.  Thou oughtest to give praises in the church to the omnipotent One.

Commodianus
Instructions of Commodianus
Chapter XXVII

Reward and punishment begin before the resurrection

And, moreover, thou sayest, Who is He who has redeemed from death, that we may believe in Him, since there punishments are awarded?  Ah! not thus, O malignant man, shall it be as thou thinkest.  For to him who has lived well there is advantage after death.  Thou, however, when one day thou diest, shalt be taken away in an evil place.  But they who believe in Christ shall be led into a good place, and those to whom that delight is given are caressed; but to you who are of a double mind, against you is punishment without the body.

Commodianus
Instructions of Commodianus
Chapter XXIV

Heretics spiritualize everything, even death

For some, when they have alighted on a very usual form of prophetic statement, generally expressed in figure and allegory, though not always, distort into some imaginary sense even the most clearly described doctrine of the resurrection of the dead, alleging that even death itself must be understood in a spiritual sense.

Tertullian
On the Resurrection of the Flesh
Chapter XIX

Creation is filled with symbols of the Resurrection

In a word, I would say, all creation is instinct with renewal. Whatever you may chance upon, has already existed; whatever you have lost, returns again without fail. All things return to their former state, after having gone out of sight; all things begin after they have ended; they come to an end for the very purpose of coming into existence again. Nothing perishes but with a view to salvation. The whole, therefore, of this revolving order of things bears witness to the resurrection of the dead. In His works did God write it, before He wrote it in the Scriptures; He proclaimed it in His mighty deeds earlier than in His inspired words.

Tertullian
On the Resurrection of the Flesh
Chapter XII

Christ birth and death are linked. You can’t have one without the other.

When, therefore, they set forth the flesh of Christ after the pattern of the angels, declaring it to be not born, and yet flesh for all that, I should wish them to compare the causes, both in Christ’s case and that of the angels, wherefore they came in the flesh. Never did any angel descend for the purpose of being crucified, of tasting death, and of rising again from the dead. Now, since there never was such a reason for angels becoming embodied, you have the cause why they assumed flesh without undergoing birth. They had not come to die, therefore they also (came not) to be born.

…The law which makes us die is the cause of our being born. Now, since Christ died owing to the condition which undergoes death, but that undergoes death which is also born, the consequence was—nay, it was an antecedent necessity—that He must have been born also, by reason of the condition which undergoes birth; because He had to die in obedience to that very condition which, because it begins with birth, ends in death.

Tertullian
On the Flesh of Christ
Chapter VI

Was God not really crucified?

But answer me at once, you that murder truth:  Was not God really crucified?  And, having been really crucified, did He not really die? And, having indeed really died, did He not really rise again?

…O thou most infamous of men, who acquittest of all guilt the murderers of God!

Tertullian
On the Flesh of Christ
Chapter V

Christ, as God, descended to Hades so that we won’t have to

Now although Christ is God, yet, being also man, “He died according to the Scriptures,” and “according to the same Scriptures was buried.” With the same law of His being He fully complied, by remaining in Hades in the form and condition of a dead man; nor did He ascend into the heights of heaven before descending into the lower parts of the earth, that He might there make the patriarchs and prophets partakers of Himself. (This being the case), you must suppose Hades to be a subterranean region, and keep at arm’s length those who are too proud to believe that the souls of the faithful deserve a place in the lower regions. These persons, who are “servants above their Lord, and disciples above their Master,” would no doubt spurn to receive the comfort of the resurrection, if they must expect it in Abraham’s bosom. But it was for this purpose, say they, that Christ descended into hell, that we might not ourselves have to descend thither.

Tertullian
A Treatise on the Soul
Chapter LV

The soul is cleansed and purified upon death

Undoubtedly, when the soul, by the power of death, is released from its concretion with the flesh, it is by the very release cleansed and purified: it is, moreover, certain that it escapes from the veil of the flesh into open space, to its clear, and pure, and intrinsic light; and then finds itself enjoying its enfranchisement from matter, and by virtue of its liberty it recovers its divinity, as one who awakes out of sleep passes from images to verities. Then it tells out what it sees; then it exults or it fears, according as it finds what lodging is prepared for it, as soon as it sees the very angel’s face, that arraigner of souls, the Mercury of the poets.

Tertullian
A Treatise on the Soul
Chapter LIII