§ 13.
The Resurrection of Christ is bodily, i.e., personal immortality, presented as a sensible indubitable fact.
“Resurrexit Christus, absoluta res est.—Ostendit se ipsum discipulis et fidelibus suis, contrectata est soliditas corporis.... Confirmata fides est non solum in cordibus, sed etiam in oculis hominum.”—Augustinus (Sermones ad Pop. S. 242, c. I. S. 361, c. S. See also on this subject Melancthon, Loci: de Resurr. Mort.). “The philosophers ... held that by death the soul was released from the body, and that after it was thus set free from the body, as from a prison, it came into the assembly of the gods, and was relieved from all corporeal burthens. Of such an immortality the philosophers allowed men to dream, though they did not hold it to be certain, nor could defend it. But the Holy Scriptures teach of the resurrection and eternal life in another manner, and place the hope of it so certainly before our eyes, that we cannot doubt it.”—Luther (Th. i. p. 549).
§ 14.
Christianity made man an extramundane, supernatural being. “We have here no abiding city, but we seek one to come.”—[Heb. xiii. 14]. “Whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord.”—[2 Cor. v. 6]. “If in this body, which is properly our own, we are strangers, and our life in this body is nothing else than a pilgrimage; how much more then are the possessions which we have for the sake of the body, such as fields, houses, gold, &c., nothing else than idle, strange things, to be used as if we were on a pilgrimage?” “Therefore we must in this life live like strangers until we reach the true fatherland, and receive a better life which is eternal.”—Luther (Th. ii. pp. 240, 370 a). “Our conversation (πολίτευμα, civitas aut jus civitatis) is in heaven, from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile body that it may be like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself.”—[Phil. iii. 20, 21]. “Neque mundus generat hominem, neque mundi homo pars est.”—Lactantius (Div. Inst. l. ii. c. 6). “Coelum de mundo: homo supra mundum.”—Ambrosius (Epist. l. vi. Ep. 38, ed. cit.). “Agnosce o homo dignitatem tuam, agnosce gloriam conditionis humanae. Est enim tibi cum mundo corpus ... sed est tibi etiam sublimius aliquid, nec omnino comparandus es caeteris creaturis.”—Bernardus (Opp. Basil. 1552, p. 79). “At Christianus ... ita supra totum mundum ascendit, nec consistit in coeli convexis, sed transcensis mente locis supercoelestibus ductu divini spiritus velut jam extra mundum raptus offert Deo preces.”—Origenes (contra Celspum. ed. Hoeschelio, p. 370). “Totus quidem iste mundus ad unius animae pretium aestimari non potest. Non enim pro toto mundo Deus animam suam dare voluit, quam pro anima humana dedit. Sublimius est ergo animae pretium, quae non nisi sanguine Christi redimi potest.”—Medit. devotiss. c. ii. (Among the spurious writings of St. Bernard.) “Sapiens anima ... Deum tantummodo sapiens hominem in homine exuit, Deoque plene et in omnibus affecta, omnem infra Deum creaturam non aliter quam Deus attendit. Relicto ergo corpore et corporeis omnibus curis et impedimentis omnium quae sunt praeter Deum obliviscitur, nihilque praeter Deum attendens quasi se solam, solumque Deum existimans,” etc.—De Nat. et Dign. Amoris Divini, cc. 14, 15. (Ib.) “Quid agis frater in saeculo, qui major es mundo?”—Hieronymus (ad Heliod. de Laude Vitae solit.).
§ 15.
The celibate and monachism—of course only in their original, religious significance and form—are sensible manifestations, necessary consequences, of the supranaturalistic, extramundane character of Christianity. It is true that they also contradict Christianity; the reason of this is shown by implication in the present work; but only because Christianity is itself a contradiction. They contradict exoteric, practical, but not esoteric, theoretical Christianity; they contradict Christian love so far as this love relates to man, but not Christian faith, not Christian love so far as it loves man only for God’s sake. There is certainly nothing concerning celibacy and monachism in the Bible; and that is very natural. In the beginning of Christianity the great matter was the recognition of Jesus as the Christ, the Messiah—the conversion of the heathens and Jews. And this conversion was the more pressing, the nearer the Christians supposed the day of judgment and the destruction of the world;—periculum in mora. There was not time or opportunity for a life of quietude, for the contemplation of monachism. Hence there necessarily reigned at that time a more practical and even liberal sentiment than at a later period, when Christianity had attained to worldly dominion, and thus the enthusiasm of proselytism was extinguished. “Apostoli (says the Church, quite correctly: Carranza, l. c. p. 256) cum fides inciperet, ad fidelium imbecillitatem se magis demittebant, cum autem evangelii praedicatio sit magis ampliata, oportet et Pontifices ad perfectam continentiam vitam suam dirigere.” When once Christianity realised itself in a worldly form, it must also necessarily develop the supranaturalistic, supramundane tendency of Christianity into a literal separation from the world. And this disposition to separation from life, from the body, from the world,—this first hyper-cosmic then anti-cosmic tendency, is a genuinely biblical disposition and spirit. In addition to the passages already cited, and others universally known, the following may stand as examples: “He that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.” “I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing.”—[Rom. vii. 18]. (“Veteres enim omnis vitiositatis in agendo origenes ad corpus referebant.”—J. G. Rosenmüller Scholia.) “Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same mind; for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin.”—[1 Pet. iv. 1]. “I have a desire to depart, and to be with Christ.”—[Phil. i. 23]. “We are confident and willing rather to be absent from the body and present with the Lord.”—[2 Cor. v. 8]. Thus, according to these passages, the partition-wall between God and man is the body (at least the fleshly, actual body); thus the body as a hindrance to union with God is something worthless, to be denied. That by the world, which is denied in Christianity, is by no means to be understood a life of mere sensuality, but the real objective world, is to be inferred in a popular manner from the belief that at the advent of the Lord, i.e., the consummation of the Christian religion, heaven and earth will pass away.