primitive men would have been immortal if they had not sinned._
At present let us go on, as we have begun, to give some explanation
regarding the bodies of our first parents. I say then, that, except
as the just consequence of sin, they would not have been subjected
even to this death, which is good to the good,--this death, which
is not exclusively known and believed in by a few, but is known to
all, by which soul and body are separated, and by which the body of
an animal which was but now visibly living is now visibly dead. For
though there can be no manner of doubt that the souls of the just
and holy dead live in peaceful rest, yet so much better would it
be for them to be alive in healthy, well-conditioned bodies, that
even those who hold the tenet that it is most blessed to be quit of
every kind of body, condemn this opinion in spite of themselves.
For no one will dare to set wise men, whether yet to die or already
dead,--in other words, whether already quit of the body, or shortly
to be so,--above the immortal gods, to whom the Supreme, in Plato,
promises as a munificent gift life indissoluble, or in eternal union
with their bodies. But this same Plato thinks that nothing better can
happen to men than that they pass through life piously and justly,
and, being separated from their bodies, be received into the bosom
of the gods, who never abandon theirs; "that, oblivious of the past,
they may revisit the upper air, and conceive the longing to return
again to the body."[597] Virgil is applauded for borrowing this from
the Platonic system. Assuredly Plato thinks that the souls of mortals
cannot always be in their bodies, but must necessarily be dismissed
by death; and, on the other hand, he thinks that without bodies they
cannot endure for ever, but with ceaseless alternation pass from
life to death, and from death to life. This difference, however,
he sets between wise men and the rest, that they are carried after
death to the stars, that each man may repose for a while in a star
suitable for him, and may thence return to the labours and miseries
of mortals when he has become oblivious of his former misery, and
possessed with the desire of being embodied. Those, again, who have
lived foolishly transmigrate into bodies fit for them, whether human
or bestial. Thus he has appointed even the good and wise souls to a
very hard lot indeed, since they do not receive such bodies as they
might always and even immortally inhabit, but such only as they can
neither permanently retain nor enjoy eternal purity without. Of this
notion of Plato's, we have in a former book already said[598] that
Porphyry was ashamed in the light of these Christian times, so that
he not only emancipated human souls from a destiny in the bodies of
beasts, but also contended for the liberation of the souls of the
wise from all bodily ties, so that, escaping from all flesh, they
might, as bare and blessed souls, dwell with the Father time without
end. And that he might not seem to be outbid by Christ's promise of
life everlasting to His saints, he also established purified souls in
endless felicity, without return to their former woes; but, that he
might contradict Christ, he denies the resurrection of incorruptible
bodies, and maintains that these souls will live eternally, not
only without earthly bodies, but without any bodies at all. And
yet, whatever he meant by this teaching, he at least did not teach
that these souls should offer no religious observance to the gods
who dwelt in bodies. And why did he not, unless because he did not
believe that the souls, even though separate from the body, were
superior to those gods? Wherefore, if these philosophers will not
dare (as I think they will not) to set human souls above the gods who
are most blessed, and yet are tied eternally to their bodies, why
do they find that absurd which the Christian faith preaches,[599]
namely, that our first parents were so created that, if they had not
sinned, they would not have been dismissed from their bodies by any
death, but would have been endowed with immortality as the reward of
their obedience, and would have lived eternally with their bodies;
and further, that the saints will in the resurrection inhabit those
very bodies in which they have here toiled, but in such sort that
neither shall any corruption or unwieldiness be suffered to attach to
their flesh, nor any grief or trouble to cloud their felicity?