15.4.23

From an unknown writer’s TREATISE ON RESURRECTION (“Epistle to Rheginus”) translated by Bentley Layton

Now, if you should recall having read in the gospel that Elijah appeared—and Moses—in Jesus’ company, do not suppose that resurrection is an apparition. It is not an apparition; rather, it is something real. Instead, one ought to maintain that the world is an apparition, rather than resurrection, which became possible through our lord, the savior, Jesus the kind.

And what am I telling you? Suddenly the living are dying—surely they are not alive at all in this world of apparition!—the rich have become poor, rulers overthrown: all changes, the world in an apparition.

But let me not deprecate the circumstances of this world at too great a length. Simply: resurrection is not of this sort, for it is real.

It is what stands at rest:
And the revealing of what truly exists.
And it is what one receives in exchange for the circumstances of this world:
And a migration into newness.
For incorruptibility is streaming down upon corruption:
And light is streaming down upon darkness, swallowing it.
And the fulness is filling up its lack

—these are the symbols and the likenesses of resurrection:

This is what brings about goodness.