So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption:
Read Chapter 15
Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
In due time I yielded to better and more enlightened minds, or rather, to truth itself, as I heard in the words of the apostle the groaning of the saints in their battle against carnal concupiscence. Although the saints are spiritually minded, they are still carnal in the corruptible body which remains a weight upon the soul. They will, however, be spiritual also in body when the body sown animal will rise spiritual. They are still prisoners under the wall of sin, in as much as they are subject to stimulation by desires to which they do not consent. Thus I came to understand this matter as did Hilary, Gregory, Ambrose, and other holy and renowned teachers of the church, who saw that the apostle, by his own words, fought strenuously the same battle against carnal concupiscences he did not wish to have yet in fact did have.
So also is the resurrection of the dead. As there is one brightness of the sun, another of the moon, another of the stars, so will God give to each of the blessed the blessed and glorious body that belongs to him, and that is proportioned to his merits.
The saints and blessed are well compared to stars for reasons which I have given when commenting on Romans 4:18. Moreover, as one star outshines another, so does one saint in heaven excel another—as in grace and merits, so in the glory and reward that he receives, and "the star of virginity shines among all as the moon among lesser lights."
So S. Dominic, while still a boy, appeared to a noble matron in a vision, wearing on his forehead a bright star which irradiated the whole world (Vita, lib. i. c1 , and cap. ult.); and it is said of the high-priest Simon, son of Onias ( Sirach 1:6): "As the morning star shines in the midst of a cloud, and as the full moon in her days, or as the noonday sun, so did he shine in the Temple of God." S...
Just as the rational soul is not good or bad in itself but is capable of becoming either of these, so our body is neither perishable nor imperishable by nature but acquires these immanent, essential qualities in due course. .
So, How? With considerable difference. Then leaving this doctrine as sufficiently proved, he again comes to the proof itself of the resurrection and the manner of it, saying,
5. It is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption. And observe his consideration. As in the case of seeds, he used the term proper to bodies, saying, it is not quickened, except it die: so in the case of bodies, the expression belonging to seeds, saying, it is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption. He said not, is produced , that you might not think it a work of the earth, but is raised. And by sowing here, he means not our generation in the womb, but the burial in the earth of our dead bodies, their dissolution, their ashes. Wherefore having said, it is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption,
But the corruptible and mortal putting on in corruption and immortality, what else is this, but that which is sown in corruption rising in in corruption?
A resurrection of the flesh or body, which he illustrates by fleshly and corporeal samples? Does he not also guarantee that the resurrection shall be accomplished by that God from whom proceed all the (creatures which have served him for) examples? "So also "says he, "is the resurrection of the dead.".
This sowing of the body he called the dissolving thereof in the ground, "because it is sown in corruption "(but "is raised) to honour and power.".
Else let them show that the soul was sown after death; in a word, that it underwent death,-that is, was demolished, dismembered, dissolved in the ground, nothing of which was ever decreed against it by God: let them display to our view its corruptibility and dishonour (as well as) its weakness, that it may also accrue to it to rise again in in corruption, and in glory, and in power.
