Chapter XXXII.
But what they object to, that the Apostle has said: They that are in the flesh, cannot please God (Rom. VIII, 8); these things were said, not that the nature of the flesh is condemned, of which God is the creator, and in which many saints have pleased God and reign with Christ: but that the senses and works of the flesh are rejected (Tertul. l. de Resur. carn. cap. 46). Therefore, when the clay of our flesh, as has already been said, has flown to heaven on the wings of spiritual angels, there it has as an eternal pledge of its true and peaceful salvation, to whom we shall be caught up in the clouds to meet Christ in the air (I Thess. IV, 16), as the prophet Isaiah testifies, saying: They shall be carried upon the shoulders and taken to their own place (Isa. LXVI, 12); and again: Who are these that fly as clouds, and as doves to their windows? (Isa. LX, 8)? That is, to the mansions of their merits, of which the Lord says: 'In my Father's house there are many mansions' (John 14:2); and again: 'And they shall bring all your brethren from all nations into Jerusalem, on horses, and mules, and chariots, and carts, and litters, says the Lord God' (Isaiah 66:20). Lest it should perhaps appear doubtful to anyone that a man placed in this body can fly in the air, the Apostle confirms this saying: 'By faith Enoch was translated, that he should not see death' (Hebrews 11:5); for Elijah also, being placed in this body in which he still is, was carried away in a fiery chariot, that is, by the conveyance of angels, who are spirits and a flame of fire, who do the will of God, as if taken up to heaven (2 Kings 2:2); and Habakkuk the prophet, being led and brought back from Judea to Chaldea by an angel, was in a moment of time (Daniel 14:35); and the Apostle Paul himself was caught up to the third heaven (2 Corinthians 12:2), and into paradise; and was brought back from there into the world. But to make it even more evident and clear that these vehicles are the spirits of the saints, that is, the angels of God, the example of Saint Philip, one of the seven, whom the Spirit of the Lord caught away from Gaza and suddenly placed in Azotus, teaches us (Acts 8:39-40). Having examined these things more thoroughly and carefully, and having scrupulously and systematically examined them, as far as the Lord has deigned to help me to further my intention, these words are sufficient. However, so that we do not seem to have omitted anything, the words of our Lord and Savior Himself are to be approved; for He says, when speaking about the field and the wheat and the weeds: 'In the end of the world, my Father will send His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all scandals' (Matthew 13:41), that is, sinners, from the wheat, that is, from the just. These are the angels who carried Lazarus, approved in the trial of poverty and weakness, into the bosom and rest of Abraham (Luke XVI, 22).