Orth. -His body now become immortal required no food. Of them that rise the Lord says: "they neither marry nor are given in marriage but are as Angels." The apostles however bear witness that He partook of the food, for the blessed Luke in the preface to the Acts says "being assembled together with the apostles the Lord commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem" and the very divine Peter says more distinctly: "Who did eat and drink with Him after He rose from the dead." For since eating is proper to them that live this present life, of necessity the Lord by means of eating and drinking proved the resurrection of the flesh to them that did not acknowledge it to be real. This same course He pursued in the case of Lazarus and of Jairus' daughter. For when He had raised up the latter He ordered that something should be given her to eat and He made Lazarus sit with Him at the table and so shewed the reality of the rising again.
Eran. -If we grant that the Lord really ate, let us grant that after the resurrection all men partake of food.
Orth. -What was done by the Saviour through a certain oeconomy is not a rule and law of nature. This follows from the fact that He did other things by oeconomy which shall by no means be the lot of them that live again.
Eran. -What do you mean?
Orth. -Will not the bodies of them that rise become incorruptible and immortal?
Eran. -So the divine Paul has taught us. "It is sown" he says "in corruption; it is raised in incorruption; it is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body."
Orth. -But the Lord, who raises the bodies of all men, unmaimed and unmarred (for lameness of limb and blindness of eye are unknown among them that are risen), left in His own body the prints of the nails, and the wound in His side, whereof are witnesses both the Lord Himself and the hand of Thomas.
Eran. -True.
Orth. -If then after the resurrection the Lord both partook of food, and shewed His hands and His feet to His disciples, and in them the prints of the nails, and His side with the mark of the wound in it, and said to them, "Handle me and see for a spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see me have" it follows that after His resurrection the nature of His body was preserved and was not changed into another substance.
Eran. -Then after the resurrection it is mortal and subject to suffering?
Orth. -By no means; it is incorruptible, impassible, and immortal.
Eran. -If it is incorruptible, impassible, and immortal, it has been changed into another nature.
Orth. -Therefore the bodies of all men will be changed into another substance, for all will be incorruptible and immortal. Or have you not heard the words of the Apostle, "For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality"?
Eran. -I have heard.
Orth. -Therefore the nature remains, but its corruption is changed into incorruption, and its mortal into immortality. But let us look at the matter in this way; we call a body that is sick and a body that is whole, in the same way, a body.
Eran. -Unquestionably.
Orth. -Wherefore?
Eran. -Since both partake of the same substance.
Orth. -Yet we see in them a very great difference, for the one is whole, perfect, and unhurt; the other has either lost an eye, or has a broken leg, or has undergone some other suffering.
Eran. -But to the same nature belong both health and sickness.
Orth. -So the body is called substance; disease and health are called accident.
Eran. -Of course. For these things are accidents of the body, and again cease to be so.
Orth. -In the same way corruption and death must be called accidents, and not substances, for they too are accidents and ceaseto be so.
Eran. -True.
Orth. -So the body of the Lord rose incorruptible, impassible, and immortal, and is worshipped by the powers of heaven, and is yet a body having its former limitation.