Ambrosiaster : The body is sown in dishonor because it is placed in a coffin where it rots and is eaten by worms. But when it rises again, it will do so in glory, and all trace of this dishonor will vanish. — COMMENTARY ON PAUL'S EPISTLES Augustine of Hippo : We will still be bodies, so vivified by the spirit, however, as to retain the substance of the flesh without suffering the accidents of sluggishness and mortality. — City of God 13.22 Didymus the Blind : When the body formed by the copulation of male and female is sown, dishonor and weakness will be in it because it is the body of a perishing soul and shares its characteristics. But when it rises again by the power of God, it appears as a spiritual body, having imperishability, power and honor. — PAULINE COMMENTARY FROM THE GREEK CHURCH Irenaeus : But what is that which, like a grain of wheat, is sown in the earth and decays, unless it be the bodies which are laid in the earth, into which seeds are also cast? And for this reason he said, "It is sown in dishonour, it rises in glory." For what is more ignoble than dead flesh? Or, on the other hand, what is more glorious than the same when it arises and partakes of incorruption? "It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power:" in its own weakness certainly, because since it is earth it goes to earth; but [it is quickened] by the power of God, who raises it from the dead. "It is sown an animal body, it rises a spiritual body." He has taught, beyond all doubt, that such language was not used by him, either with reference to the soul or to the spirit, but to bodies that have become corpses. For these are animal bodies, that is, [bodies] which partake of life, which when they have lost, they succumb to death; then, rising through the Spirit's instrumentality, they become spiritual bodies, so that by the Spirit they possess a perpetual life. — Against Heresies Book V John Chrysostom : "It is sown in dishonor." For what is more unsightly than a corpse in dissolution? "It is raised in glory." "It is sown in weakness." For before thirty days the whole is gone, and the flesh cannot keep itself together nor hold out for one day. "It is raised in power." For there shall nothing prevail against it for all the future. Here is why he stood in need of those former analogies, lest many on hearing of these things, that they are "raised in incorruption and glory and power," might suppose that there is no difference among those who rise again. For all indeed rise again, both in power and in incorruption; and in this glory of their incorruption yet are not all in the same state of honor and safety. — Homily on 1 Corinthians 41