It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.
Read Chapter 15
Ambrose of Milan
AD 397
You are sown as are all other things. Why, then, do you wonder whether you will rise again like the rest? You believe the seed because you see it. You do not believe the rising again because you do not see it. “Blessed are they who have not seen, and yet have believed.” Yet, before the proper season arrives, not even the seed is believed. For not every season is suitable for seeds to grow. Wheat is sown at one time and comes up at another time. At one time the vine is grafted. At another shoots begin to grow, foliage becomes luxuriant, and grapes take form. At one time, the olive tree is planted. At another, as though heavy with child and burdened with a progeny of berries, it is bent low in the abundance of its own fruit. But before the proper time arrives for each, production is restricted. Neither the tree nor the plant has the time of bearing within its own power.
As the Spirit, when it serves the flesh, is not improperly said to be carnal, so the flesh, when it serves the spirit, will rightly be called spiritual—not because changed into spirit, as some suppose who misinterpret the text, “What is sown a natural body rises a spiritual body,” but because it will be so subject to the spirit that, with a marvelous pliancy of perfect obedience, it will accept the infallible law of its indissoluble immortality, putting aside every feeling of fatigue, every shadow of suffering, every sign of slowing down. This “spiritual body” will not only be better than any body on earth in perfect health but will surpass even that of Adam or Eve before their sin.
It is sown a natural body. It dies as it lived: its life was vegetative and sensitive, and needed for its support food and drink, like the life of other animals. Song of Solomon , too, it was solid, inert, unable to give place to other bodies, and impenetrable. Such was the body of Adam, even in Paradise. The natural body is one that eats, drinks, sleeps, digests, toils, suffers fatigue, is heavy, and offers resistance to other bodies.
It is raised a spiritual body1. Not that the body is to be changed into a spirit or into an arial body, as Origen and Eutychius, Patriarch of Constantinople in the time of S. Gregory, thought (he was convinced by S. Gregory and abandoned his error), but spiritual in the sense of being wholly subject and conformed to the spirit, so that it no longer stands in need of food or drink, it toils not, and feels no weariness, but Isaiah , so to speak, heavenly and deified, and, as Tertullian says, Isaiah , as it were, changed into the angelic nature. So S. Augu...
How is it possible, therefore, that that seed should be after images of the angels, seeing it has obtained a form after the likeness of men? Why, again, since it was of a spiritual nature, had it any need of descending into flesh? For what is carnal stands in need of that which is spiritual, if indeed it is to be saved, that in it it may be sanctified and cleared from all impurity, and that what is mortal may be swallowed up by immortality;.
in its own weakness certainly, because since it is earth it goes to earth; but
What do you say? Is not this body spiritual? It is indeed spiritual, but that will be much more so. For now oftentimes both the abundant grace of the Holy Ghost flies away on men's committing great sins; and again, the Spirit continuing present, the life of the flesh depends on the soul: and the result in such a case is a void, without the Spirit. But in that day not so: rather he abides continually in the flesh of the righteous, and the victory shall be His, the natural soul also being present.
For either it was some such thing which he intimated by saying, a spiritual body, or that it shall be lighter and more subtle and such as even to be wafted upon air; or rather he meant both these. And if you disbelieve the doctrine, behold the heavenly bodies which are so glorious and (for this time) so durable, and abide in undecaying tranquillity; and believe thou from hence, that God can also make these corruptible bodies incorruptible and much more excellent than those which are visible.
Is our present body not spiritual as well? Yes it is, but then it will be more so. For now the grace of the Holy Spirit often leaves people who commit great sins, and even if he remains, the life of the flesh depends on the soul, with the result that the Spirit plays no part. But after the resurrection this will no longer be so, because then the Spirit will dwell permanently in the flesh of the righteous and the victory will be his, even while the soul is also alive.
The seed does not germinate unless it is dissolved in the earth, rarefied and made for us, so that it is mixed with the moisture nearby and dust changes into root and sprout, and it does not stop there but changes into a stalk with sections in between which are surrounded by chains, as it were, so as to be able to hold the grain in an upright position… Thus the apostle says that the mystery of the resurrection is presignified before us in the miracles performed in the seeds. The divine power in its surpassing excellence not only gives back to see but adds many great and more wonderful features with which nature is magnificently adorned. [The Teaching of ] On the Soul and the Resurrection.
Christ had a spiritual body, because he had received the full presence of the Holy Spirit when the dove rested on him. So the Lord had the power of the Paraclete in his humanity in a way distinguishable from his divinity, since he was himself the Spirit. .
Not pervading matter, but the Maker of material spirits.
The sun and moon were made for us: how, then, can I adore my own servants? How can I speak of stocks and stones as gods? For the Spirit that pervades matter
If, however, you remove the body from the resurrection which you submitted to the dissolution, what becomes of the diversity in the issue? Likewise, "although it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.".
Must be understood in a preceding passage: "That which is sown is the natural body, and that which rises again is the spiritual body; because that is not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural: since the first Adam was made a living soul, the last Adam a quickening spirit."
