The Thing that Puzzles Me the Most in Patristic Literature

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
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Re: The Thing that Puzzles Me the Most in Patristic Literatu

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Indeed I think with the evidence of De Recta in Deum Fide, Acts of Archelaus and Tertullian Against Marcion 5 and other sources we can make a better case that the material from 2 Corinthians was added immediately following 1 Corinthians 15:52. This is how it appears in Tertullian. Tertullian abruptly cuts of his discussion of 1 Corinthians at this point [indeed the discussion of this section starts and feels like a separate discussion from the rest of 1 Corinthians] and then he almost immediately jumps to the same reading in 2 Corinthians [= ministry of New Testament]. But then in 2 Cor 5 he reflects back on the way the materials connects back to 1 Cor 15:50. Here is the list of citations in the new section
529 Gen. i. 3.530 Isa. xlix. 6 (Sept. quoted in Acts xiii. 47).531 Isa. ix. 2 and Matt. iv. 16.532 Ps. iv. 7 (Sept.).533 Persona: the pro/swpon of the Septuagint.534 2 Cor. iv. 4.535 Ait.536 Eph. ii. 12.537 2 Cor. iv. 7.538 2 Cor. iv. 8-12.539 Oehler, after Fr. Junius, defends the reading "mortificationem dei," instead of Domini, in reference to Marcion, who seems to have so corrupted the reading.540 2 Cor. iv. 10.541 2 Cor. iv. 10.542 2 Cor. iv. 16-18.543 2 Cor. iv. 11.544 2 Cor. iv. 14.545 2 Cor. iv. 16.546 2 Cor. iv. 16.547 Vexatione.548 Animi.549 2 Cor. v. 1.550 As Marcion would have men believe.551 2 Cor. v. 2, 3.552 Despoliati.553 Gravemur.554 2 Cor. v. 4.555 Strinxit.556 1 Cor. xv. 52.557 Superinduti magis quod de coelo quam exuti corpus.558 Utique et mortui.559 De coelo.560 1 Cor. xv. 53.561 Induunt.562 Superinduunt.563 2 Cor. v. 4.564 Vita praeveniri.565 2 Cor. v. 4; and see his treatise, De Resurrect. Carnis, cap. xlii.566 2 Cor. v. 5.567 2 Cor. v. 6.568 Boni ducere.569 2 Cor. v. 8.
And the closing words of the section

from what follows, when he adds, that "in this tabernacle of our earthly body we do groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with the vesture which is from heaven,551 if so be, that having been unclothed,552 we shall not be found naked; "in other words, shall regain that of which we have been divested, even our body. And again he says: "We that are in this tabernacle do groan, not as if we were oppressed553 with an unwillingness to be unclothed, but (we wish)to be clothed upon."554  He here says expressly, what he touched but lightly555 in his first epistle, where he wrote: ) "The dead shall be raised Incorruptible (meaning those who had undergone mortality), "and we shall be changed" (whom God shall find to be yet in the flesh).556 Both those shall be raised incorruptible, because they shall regain their body----and that a renewed one, from which shall come their incorruptibility; and these also shall, in the crisis of the last moment, and from their instantaneous death, whilst encountering the oppressions of anti-christ, undergo a change, obtaining therein not so much a divestiture of body as "a clothing upon" with the vesture which is from heaven.557 [3] So that whilst these shall put on over their (changed) body this, heavenly raiment, the dead also shall for their part558 recover their body, over which they too have a supervesture to put on, even the incorruption of heaven;559 because of these it was that he said: "This corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality."560The one put on this (heavenly) apparel,561 when they recover their bodies; the others put it on as a supervesture,562 when they indeed hardly lose them (in the suddenness of their change).  It was accordingly not without good reason that he described them as "not wishing indeed to be unclothed," but (rather as wanting) "to be clothed upon; "563 in other words, as wishing not to undergo death, but to be surprised into life,564 "that this moral (body) might be swallowed up of life,"565 by being rescued from death in the supervesture of its changed state. This is why he shows us how much better it is for us not to be sorry, if we should be surprised by death, and tells us that we even hold of God "the earnest of His Spirit"566 (pledged as it were thereby to have "the clothing upon," which is the object of our hope), and that "so long as we are in the flesh, we are absent from the Lord; "567moreover, that we ought on this account to prefer568"rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord,"569 and so to be ready to meet even death with joy. In this view it is that he informs us how "we must all appear before the judgement-seat of Christ, that every one may receive the things done in his body, according as he hath done either good or bad."570 [5] Since, however, there is then to be a retribution according to men's merits, how will any be able to reckon with571 God? But by mentioning both the judgment-seat and the distinction between works good and bad, he sets before us a Judge who is to award both sentences,572 and has thereby affirmed that all will have to be present at the tribunal in their bodies. For it will be impossible to pass sentence except on the body, for what has been done in the body. God would be unjust, if any one were not punished or else rewarded in that very condition,573 wherein the merit was itself achieved
This argument is supported by De Recta in Deum Fide
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Re: The Thing that Puzzles Me the Most in Patristic Literatu

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The same "habit" of Tertullian to connect the two parts of 1 Cor and 2 Cor happens at least twice in Resurrection of the Flesh

 For as "He has given to us the earnest of the Spirit, "383 so has He received from us the earnest of the flesh, and has carried it with Him into heaven as a pledge of that complete entirety which is one day to be restored to it. Be not disquieted, O flesh and blood, with any care; in Christ you have acquired both heaven and the kingdom of God. Otherwise, if they say that you are not in Christ, let them also say that Christ is not in heaven, since they have denied you heaven. Likewise "neither shall corruption," says he, "inherit incorruption.384 This he says, not that you may take flesh and blood to be corruption, for they are themselves rather the subjects of corruption,-I mean through death, since death does not so much corrupt, as actually consume, our flesh and blood. But inasmuch as he had plainly said that the works of the flesh and blood could not obtain the kingdom of God, with the view of stating this with accumulated stress, he deprived corruption itself-that is, death, which profits so largely by the works of the flesh and blood-from all inheritance of incorruption.

and again

What wonder, then, if it is more commonly called after the substance with which it is fully furnished, than after that of which it has yet but a sprinkling?Chapter LIV.-Death Swallowed Up of Life. Meaning of This Phrase in Relation to the Resurrection of the Body.Then, again, questions very often are suggested by occasional and isolated terms, just as much as they are by connected sentences. Thus, because of the apostle's expression, "that mortality may be swallowed up of life "417 -in reference to the flesh-they wrest the wordswallowed up into the sense of the actual destruction of the flesh; as if we might not speak of ourselves as swallowing bile, or swallowing grief, meaning that we conceal and hide it, and keep it within ourselves. The truth is, when it is written, "This mortal must put on immortality,"418 it is explained in what sense it is that "mortality is swallowed up of life "-even whilst, clothed with immortality, it is hidden and concealed, and contained within it, not as consumed, and destroyed, and lost. But death, you will say in reply to me, at this rate, must be safe, even when it has been swallowed up. Well, then, I ask you to distinguish words which are similar in form according to their proper meanings. Death is one thing, and morality is another. It is one thing for death to be swallowed up, and another thing for mortality to be swallowed up. Death is incapable of immortality, but not so mortality. Besides, as it is written that "this mortal must put on immortality,"419 how is this possible when it is swallowed up of life? But how is it swallowed up of life, (in the sense of destroyed by it) when it is actually received, and restored, and included in it? For the rest, it is only just and right that death should be swallowed up in utter destruction, since it does itself devour with this same intent. Death, says the apostle, has devoured by exercising its strength, and therefore has been itself devoured in the struggle "swallowed up in victory."420 "O death, where is thy sting? O death, where is thy victory? "421 Therefore life, too, as the great antagonist of death, will in the struggle swallow up for salvation what death, in its struggle, had swallowed up for destruction.

and again (and perhaps most significantly)

Afterwards the face of the same Moses is changed,424 with a brightness which eye could not bear. But he was Moses still, even when he was not visible. So also Stephen had already put on the appearance of an angel,425 although they were none other than his human knees426 which bent beneath the stoning. The Lord, again, in the retirement of the mount, had changed His raiment for a robe of light; but He still retained features which Peter could recognise.427 In that same scene Moses also and Elias gave proof that the same condition of bodily existence may continue even in glory-the one in the likeness of a flesh which he had not yet recovered, the other in the reality of one which he had not yet put off.428 It was as full of this splendid example that Paul said: "Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body."

And again later in the conclusion

In short, what will be the use of the entire body, when the entire body shall become useless? In reply to all this, we have then already settled the principle that the dispensation of the future state ought not to be compared with that of the present world, and that in the interval between them a change will take place; and we now add the remark, that these functions of our bodily limbs will continue to supply the needs of this life up to the moment when life itself shall pass away from time to eternity, as the natural body gives place to the spiritual, until "this mortal puts on immorality, and this corruptible puts on incorruption: "464so that when life shall itself become freed from all wants, our limbs shall then be freed also from their services, and therefore will be no longer wanted. Still, although liberated from their offices, they will be yet preserved for judgment, "that every one may receive the things done in his body."465 For the judgment-seat of God requires that man be kept entire. Entire, however, he cannot be without his limbs, of the substance of which, not the functions, he consists; unless, forsooth, you will be bold enough to maintain that a ship is perfect without her keel, or her bow, or her stern, and without the solidity of her entire t frame. And yet how often have we seen the same ship, after being shattered with the storm and broken by decay, with all her timbers repaired and restored, gallantly riding on the wave in all the beauty of a renewed fabric! Do we then disquiet ourselves with doubt about God's skill, and will, and rights?
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Re: The Thing that Puzzles Me the Most in Patristic Literatu

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There's almost too much evidence for this. I looked further in the treatise; happening again and again and again. another note completely I was at the mall buying something and the clerk asked me "mall employee?" to get a discount.my stupid response "do I look like a mall employee? " probably could have saved a lot of money
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