Orth. -When the Holy Ghost came down upon the Apostles, and that wonderful sight and sound collected thousands to the house, what did the chief of the apostles in the speech he then made say concerning the Lord's resurrection?
Eran. -He quoted the divine David, and said that he had received promises from God that the Lord Christ should be born of the fruit of his loins and that in trust in these promises he prophetically foresaw His resurrection, and plainly said that His soul was not left in Hades and that His flesh did not see corruption.
Orth. -His resurrection therefore is of these.
Eran. -How can any one in his senses say that there is a resurrection of the soul which never died?
Orth. -How comes it that you who attribute the passion, the death and the resurrection to the immutable and uncircumscribed Godhead have suddenly appeared before us in your right mind and now object to connecting the word resurrection with the soul?
Eran. -Because the word resurrection is applicable to what has fallen.
Orth. -But the body does not obtain resurrection apart from a soul, but being renewed by the divine will, and conjoined with its yokefellow, it receives life. Was it not thus that the Lord raised Lazarus?
Eran. -It is plain that not the body alone rises.
Orth. -This is more distinctly taught by the divine Ezekiel, for he points out how the Lord commanded the bones to come together, and how all of them were duly fitted together, and how He made sinews and veins and arteries grow with all the flesh pertaining to them and the skin that clothes them all, and then ordered the souls to come back to their own bodies.
Eran. -This is true.
Orth. -But the Lord's body did not undergo this corruption, but remained unimpaired, and on the third day recovered its own soul.
Eran. -Agreed.
Orth. -Then the death was of what had suffered?
Eran. -Without question.
Orth. -And when the great Peter mentioned the resurrection, and the divine David too, they said that His soul was not left in Hell, but that His body did not undergo corruption?
Eran. -They did.
Orth. -Then it was not the Godhead which underwent death, but the body by severance from the soul?
Eran. -I cannot brook these absurdities.
Orth. -But you are fighting against your own arguments; it is your own words which you are calling absurd.
Eran. -You slander me; not one of these words is mine.
Orth.-Suppose any one to ask what is the animal which is at once reasonable and mortal, and suppose some one else to answer-man; which of the two would you call interpreter of the saying? The questioner or the answerer?
Eran. -The answerer.
Orth. -Then I was quite right in calling the arguments yours? For you, I ween, in your answers, by rejecting some points and accepting others, confirmed them.
Eran. -Then I will not answer any longer; do you answer.
Orth. -I will answer.