Thursday, April 27, 2023

The resurrection of the flesh, a real human body composed of blood-filled veins, sinews, bones, and so forth

"If our flesh [(caro)] is not saved, then the Lord has not redeemed us with his blood, the eucharistic chalice does not make us sharers in his blood, and the bread we break does not make us sharers in his body. There can be no blood without veins, flesh and the rest of the human substance, and this the Word of God actually became: it was with his own blood that he redeemed us [(Sanguis enim non est nisi a venis et carnibus et a reliqua quae est secundum hominem substantia, quae vere factum Verbum Dei sanguine suo redemit nos)]. . . .
"How . . .  can it be said that flesh belonging to the Lord’s own body and nourished by his body and blood is incapable of receiving [(
δεκτικὴν μὴ εἶναι | negant capacem esse)] God’s gift of eternal life? Saint Paul says in his letter to the Ephesians that we are members of his body, of his flesh and bones. He is not speaking of some spiritual and incorporeal kind of man, for spirits do not have flesh and bones. He is speaking of a real human body composed of flesh, sinews and bones [(ἀλλὰ περὶ τῆς κατὰ τὸν ἀληθινὸν ἄνθρωπον οἰκονομίας, τῆς ἐκ σαρκὸς καὶ νεύρων καὶ ὀστέων συνεστώσης | sed de ea dispositione, quae est secundum verum hominem, quae ex carnibus et nervis et ossibus consistit)], nourished by the chalice of Christ’s blood and receiving growth from the bread which is his body."

     St. Irenaeus, Against the heresies 5.2.2, as translated in the Office of readings for the Thursday of the Third Week of Easter, Liturgy of the hours (vol. 2, pp. 727-728).  Greek and Latin from the 1857 edition ed. Harvey, vol. 2, pp. 318-321, not yet SC 153, pp. 30-38.

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