cene defines it, is " a return to the state from which one has fallen." [1] Finally, if we consider the arguments by which we have already established a future resurrection, every doubt on the subject must, at once, disappear. We have said that the body is to rise again, that " every one may receive the proper things of the body, according as he hath done, whether it be good or evil." [2] Man is, therefore, to rise again, in the same body with which he served God, or was a slave to the devil; that in the same body he may experience rewards, and a crown of victory, or endure the severest punishments, and never ending torments.
Not only will the body rise, but it will rise endowed with whatever constitutes the reality of its nature, and adorns and ornaments man: according to these admirable words of St. Augustine: " There shall, then, be no deformity of body; if some have been overburdened with flesh, they shall not resume its entire weight; whatever shall exceed the proper habit shall be deemed superfluous. On the other hand, should the body be wasted by the malignity of disease, or the debility of old age, or be emaciated from any other cause, it shall be recruited by the divine power of Jesus Christ, who will not only restore the body, but repair whatever it shall have lost through the wretchedness of this life." 3 In another place he says; " Man shall not resume his former hair, but shall be adorned with such as will become him, according to these words of the Redeemer, The very hairs of your head are all numbered: [3] God will restore them according to his wisdom." [4]
The members, because essential to the integrity of human nature, shall all be restored: the blind from nature or disease, the lame, the maimed, and the paralysed shall rise again with perfect bodies: otherwise the desires of the soul, which so strongly incline it to a union with the body, should be far from satisfied; and yet we are convinced, that in the resurrection, these desires shall be fully realized. Besides, the resurrection, like the creation, is clearly to be numbered amongst the principal works of God. As, therefore, at the creation, all things came perfect from the hand of God; so, at the resurrection shall all things be perfectly restored by the same omnipotent hand.
These observations are not to be restricted to the bodies of the martyrs; of whom St. Augustine says: " As the mutilation which they suffered should prove a deformity, they shall rise with all their members; otherwise those who were beheaded should rise without a head. The scars, however, which they received, shall remain, shining like the wounds of Christ, with a brilliancy far more resplendant than that of gold and of precious stones." [5] The wicked too, shall rise with all then members, although they should have been lost through their own
