30. Be tender, I beseech thee, of this body,
and understand that thou wilt be raised from the dead, to be judged
with this body. But if there steal into thy mind any thought of
unbelief, as though the thing were impossible, judge of the things
unseen by what happens to thyself. For tell me; a hundred years
ago or more, think where wast thou thyself: and from what a most
minute and mean substance thou art come to so great a stature, and so
much dignity of beauty XVIII. 9.. What
then? Cannot He who brought the non-existent into being, raise up
again that which already exists and has decayed Compare xviii. 6,
9; Athenagoras, On the Resurrection of the Dead, c.
3.? He who raises the corn, which is sown
for our sakes, as year by year it dies,—will He have difficulty
in raising us up, for whose sakes that corn also has been
raised XVIII. 6.
John xii. 24; 1 Cor. xv.
36.? Seest thou how the trees stand now for
many months without either fruit or leaves: but when the winter
is past they spring up whole into life again as if from the
dead XVIII. 7.: shall not we much rather and more
easily return to life? The rod of Moses was transformed by the
will of God into the unfamiliar nature of a serpent: and cannot a
man, who has fallen into death, be restored to himself
again?