Chapter 22.—That the Bodies of
the Saints Shall After the Resurrection Be Spiritual, and Yet Flesh
Shall Not Be Changed into Spirit.
The bodies of the righteous, then,
such as they shall be in the resurrection, shall need neither any
fruit to preserve them from dying of disease or the wasting decay
of old age, nor any other physical nourishment to allay the
cravings of hunger or of thirst; for they shall be invested with so
sure and every way inviolable an immortality, that they shall not
eat save when they choose, nor be under the necessity of eating,
while they enjoy the power
of doing so. For so also was
it with the angels who presented themselves to the eye and touch of
men, not because they could do no otherwise, but because they were
able and desirous to suit themselves to men by a kind of manhood
ministry. For neither are we to suppose, when men receive them as
guests, that the angels eat only in appearance, though to any who
did not know them to be angels they might seem to eat from the same
necessity as ourselves. So these words spoken in the Book of
Tobit, “You saw me eat, but you saw it but in vision;”
612
that is, you
thought I took food as you do for the sake of refreshing my body.
But if in the case of the angels another opinion seems more capable
of defence, certainly our faith leaves no room to doubt regarding
our Lord Himself, that even after His resurrection, and when now in
spiritual but yet real flesh, He ate and drank with His disciples;
for not the power, but the need, of eating and drinking is taken
from these bodies. And so they will be spiritual, not because
they shall cease to be bodies, but because they shall subsist by
the quickening spirit.
612
Tobit xii. 19
.