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History of the Franks

St Gregory of Tours, tr. Dalton, 1927

Book 10, 13. A Dispute Concerning the Resurrection

In these days arose one of our priests, poisoned by the malice of the Sadducees, who denied the resurrection to come. When we maintained that it was both taught in Holy Writ and proven by authority of apostolic tradition, he replied: ‘True it is that this is the current belief, but we cannot be certified whether verily it be so or not, more especially since the Lord spake thus in His wrath against the first man whom He had moulded with His divine hand: “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return into the ground from which thou wast taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.”¹ What answer will ye make thereto, ye who preach the resurrection to come, since God doth not promise that man when he is once become dust shall rise again?’ I answered: ‘I hold that no Catholic is ignorant of the words spoken on this matter by our Lord and Redeemer Himself, and by the Fathers who were before us. For in the Book of Genesis, when the Patriarchs died, God said: “Thou shalt be gathered to thy people, buried in a good old age.”² Likewise also He saith to Cain: “The voice of thy brother’s blood crieth to Me from the ground.”³ Whence it is most certain that souls live after they come forth from the body and eagerly⁴ await the resurrection that shall be. And it is written also of Job that he should rise in the resurrection of the dead. And the prophet David, though he spake in the person of the Lord, yet he foresaw the resurrection when he said: “He that sleepeth, shall he not afterwards arise?”⁵ which is to say, He who is oppressed by the sleep of death, shall he not come to the resurrection? Isaiah also teacheth that the dead shall rise from their tombs.⁶ In like manner the prophet Ezekiel most manifestly taught the resurrection to come when he told how the dry bones were covered with skin, compacted with sinews, lined with veins, and animated with the breath of the Spirit; and how the whole man thus formed anew.⁷ That also was a manifest sign of the resurrection when a corpse touching the limbs⁸ of Elisha came to life by a miraculous power; which also the Resurrection of our Lord made manifest, who is the firstborn of the dead,⁹ who destroyed death and from the tomb created life anew for the dead.’ Whereto the priest made answer: ‘That the Lord was made man, died, and rose again, I doubt it not; but that all the other dead shall rise, I do not admit.’ Then I said: ‘And what need was there for the Son of God to descend from heaven, and be incarnate, and undergo death, and penetrate into Hell, save for this only, that He would not suffer the man whom He had fashioned to be left in perpetual death? The souls of the just who before His Passion were pent in the infernal prison-house were set free upon His coming. For when He descended into Hell, and suffused the darkness with new light, He led forth with Him these souls, that they might not be tormented more in expectation, according as it is written: “And in their graves shall the dead arise.”’¹⁰ But the priest said: ‘Can, then, bones which have been reduced to ashes be animated once again, and living man rise from them?’ I answered: ‘We believe that were man reduced to dust, however fine, and scattered upon the face of the waters or the earth by the force of the fiercest wind, even then it should be no hard thing for God to restore life to this dust.’ The priest replied: ‘In this, methinketh ye err above all, when ye assert in your smooth words the harshest doctrine of all, affirming the resurrection of that which hath been rapt of wild beasts, or drowned in waters, or devoured by jaws of fish, or changed into excrement and voided at the draught, or deposited by running water, or destroyed by rotting in the earth.’ Thereto I made answer: ‘Thou hast forgotten, it seemeth, that which John the Evangelist, he who lay on the bosom of the Lord and searched out the secrets of the divine mystery, said in the Apocalypse.¹¹ “Then”, he said, “the sea shall give up her dead.” Whence it is manifest that whatsoever of the human body fish hath swallowed, or bird hath preyed upon, or beast hath devoured, shall be joined once more together, and restored by the Lord for the resurrection; for He shall not find it hard to restore that which was lost, who created out of nothing that which had no being. But He shall restore solid things entire as before, so that the body which was in this world may have punishment or glory according to its desert. For so the Lord Himself saith in the Gospel: “For the Son of man shall come in the glory of His Father, with His angels, and then He shall reward every man according to his works.”¹² And Martha, when she doubted that her brother Lazarus should straightway rise, said: “I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”¹³ To whom the Lord made answer: “I am the resurrection, the way, the truth, and the life.”’¹⁴ To this the priest replied: ‘How, then, is it spoken in the psalm: “The wicked shall not rise in the Judgement”?’¹⁵ And I rejoined: ‘They rise not that they may judge, but they rise that they may be judged; for neither can the Judge sit with the wicked to give an account of His acts.’ Then he said: ‘The Lord hath said in the Gospel: “He that believeth not is condemned already”,¹⁶ meaning that he shall not live in the resurrection.’ I replied: ‘He is condemned to eternal punishment, because he believed not in the only-begotten Son of God. Yet shall he rise in the body, that he may endure the punishment in that body wherein he sinned. Nor can there be a Judgement, save first the dead rise. For like as the heaven keepeth those who died in holiness, and from whose tombs there doth proceed the power by which the blind receive sight, the lame walk, the lepers are made clean, and other good gifts of healings are granted to the sick who seek them, even so we believe that the prison of hell holdeth the sinner until the Judgement.’ The priest said: ‘But we read in the psalm: “The spirit passeth through man and he is gone, and he shall know his place no more.”’¹⁷ I answered: ‘This is that which the Lord Himself said through the parable to the rich man who was tormented in hell fire: “Thou in thy lifetime receivedst the good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things.”¹⁸ For the rich man, when he was tormented in the flames, knew no more his purple or his fine linen, nor the delights of his banqueting which earth, air, and sea yielded unto him; and Lazarus, when he rested in Abraham’s bosom, and the rich man was tormented in the flames, knew not the sores and the corruption which he endured lying at the rich man’s gate.’ The priest continued: ‘In another psalm we read: “Their breath goeth forth, and they shall return to their earth; in that very day all their thoughts shall perish.”’¹⁹ I rejoined: ‘Thou sayest well that when the breath is gone forth from a man, and his body lieth dead, he thinketh not on the things which he hath left in the world. For example, he thinketh not to build, to plant or to cultivate his land; he thinketh not to amass gold or silver, or the other riches of the world. But wherefore doubtest thou of the resurrection, when the apostle Paul, by whom, as he saith, Christ spake, manifestly maketh mention thereof: “Therefore we are buried with Christ by baptism into death; that like as He died and was raised again from the dead, even so we also should walk in newness of life”?²⁰ And again: “We shall all rise, but we shall not all be changed. For the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.”²¹ And yet again: “One star differeth from another in glory, so also is the resurrection of the dead.” And in the same place: “It is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption”,²² and the rest. And in another place: “We must all appear before the judgement-seat of Christ, that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.”²³ And most plainly doth he point to the future resurrection when he speaketh to the Thessalonians: “But I would not have you to be ignorant concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive, and remain unto the coming of the Lord, shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, and with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we which are alive, and remain, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words.”²⁴ There is much testimony which confirmeth this belief. But as for thee, I know not wherefore thou doubtest of the resurrection, to which the saints look forward by reason of their good desert, and sinners fear by reason of their guilt. For this resurrection, indeed, is proven to us by the natural things which we behold. The trees which in summer are covered with leaves are laid bare when the winter cometh; but when the spring followeth, they seem to arise again, and are clothed once more with the covering of leaves which they had before. And the seeds which are cast into the earth testify to the same thing; which are entrusted to the furrows, but if ever they were dead yet rise and bear fruit manyfold, according as Paul the apostle saith: “Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened except first it die.”²⁵ All which things are manifested to the world that it may have faith in the resurrection. For if there be no resurrection, what shall it profit the just to do well, or in what shall it harm the sinner to do evil? If there be no Judgement to come, all men should decline the way of their own desires, each doing that which seemeth to him good. Or fearest thou not, O wicked one, that which the Lord Himself said to the blessed apostles: “When the Son of man shall come upon the throne of His glory, before Him shall all men be gathered, and He shall separate them one from the other, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats; and He shall set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on His left. And He shall say unto these: Come, ye blessed, receive the kingdom; and to those: Depart from Me, ye that work iniquity.”²⁶ And, as the Scripture further teacheth: “And these shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal.”²⁷ Doubtest thou that there shall be a resurrection of the dead, and a judgement of their works, when the Lord shall do these things? Let the apostle Paul make answer to thee, as to other unbelievers, saying: “If Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain.” ’²⁸ At these words the priest was moved to contrition, and departed from our sight, promising to believe in the resurrection, according to the passages from the Holy Scriptures which I have cited above.

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