Letter 25

From: Ambrose, Bishop of Milan To: Studius Date: ~380 AD Context: A letter to an imperial official named Studius, responding to questions about how to reconcile Christian faith with philosophical objections, particularly regarding the resurrection of the body. Ambrose to Studius — greetings. You have asked, as a man educated in philosophy, how Christians can believe in the resurrection of the body. I understand the difficulty. The philosophers teach that the soul, being immaterial, may survive death — but the body? The body decays. The body returns to dust. How can dust rise again? My answer is simple: the God who made the body from dust the first time can make it from dust a second time. If creation itself does not trouble you — if you accept that the world came into being from nothing — then resurrection should trouble you less. It is easier to remake what already existed than to make it from nothing. But let me address the philosophical objection more precisely. You say the body is a prison for the soul, and death liberates the soul from its prison. I reply: this is Plato, not Christ. Christianity does not despise the body. God created it and called it good. The Son of God assumed it and sanctified it. The Spirit dwells in it as a temple. To despise the body is to despise what God has honored. The resurrection is not the soul's return to prison but the body's transformation into glory. "It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body" (1 Corinthians 15:44). The risen body is not the corpse reassembled — it is the body transfigured, freed from corruption, fitted for eternity. This is not a retreat from reason, my friend. It is an advance beyond it — to the God who is the author of reason and whose purposes exceed what reason alone can grasp. Think on these things, and if further questions arise, write to me again.

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