CONTRA FATUM

”[...]just as the person who looks upon the perceptible cosmos and has grasped the Wisdom that is displayed in the beauty of these beings infers, on the basis of what the eye sees, the invisible Beauty and the wellspring of Wisdom, whose outflow contrived the natural order of what is, so too the person who attends to this new cosmos that appears in the creation of the church sees in it the One who is and is becoming ”all in all” (cf. 1 Cor 15:28) as, by way of the things our nature can take in and comprehend, he directs our knowledge toward that which cannot be contained.” (In Cant. 386, Norris p. 407) ”ὥσπερ τοίνυν ὁ πρὸς τὸν αἰσθητὸν ἀπιδὼν κόσμον καὶ τὴν ἐμφαινομένην τῷ κάλλει τῶν ὄντων σοφίαν κατανοήσας ἀναλογίζεται διὰ τῶν ὁρωμένων τό τε ἀόρατον κάλλος καὶ τὴν πηγὴν τῆς σοφίας, ἧς ἡ ἀπόρροια τὴν τῶν ὄντων συνεστήσατο φύσιν, οὕτω καὶ ὁ πρὸς τὸν καινὸν τοῦτον κόσμον τῆς κατὰ τὴν ἐκκλησίαν κτίσεως βλέπων ὁρᾷ ἐν αὐτῷ τὸν πάντα ἐν πᾶσιν ὄντα τε καὶ γινόμενον διὰ τῶν χωρητῶν τε καὶ κα

”Now all these statements, with their description of the Bridgegroom's beauty, point not to the invisible and incomprehensible realities of the Godhead but to the things that were revealed in the economy, when Deity, having put on human nature, was revealed on the earth and held converse with human beings. By their means, as the apostle says, ”the invisible things of him … have been clearly apprehended in his works” (Rom 1:20) as revealed through the foundation of the cosmos that is the church. For the creation of the cosmos signifies the foundation of the church[...]” (In Cant. 384-385, Norris p. 405) ”ταῦτα γὰρ πάντα, δι’ ὧν ἡ τοῦ κάλλους γέγονεν ὑπογραφή, οὐ τῶν ἀοράτων τε καὶ ἀκαταλήπτων τῆς θεότητός ἐστιν ἐνδεικτικὰ ἀλλὰ τῶν κατ’ οἰκονομίαν φανερωθέντων, ὅτε ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς ὤφθη καὶ τοῖς ἀνθρώποις συνανεστράφη τὴν ἀνθρωπίνην ἐνδυσάμενος φύσιν, δι’ ὧν κατὰ τὸν ἀποστολικὸν λόγον καὶ τὰ ἀόρατα αὐτοῦ τοῖς ποιήμασι νοούμενα καθορᾶται διὰ τῆς τοῦ ἐκκλησιαστικοῦ κόσμου κατασκ

"They say that which is commonly supposed to be death is not really so,—namely, the separation of body and soul: it is rather the ignorance of God, by reason of which man is dead to God, and is not less buried in error than he would be in the grave. Wherefore that also must be held to be the resurrection, when a man is reanimated by access to the truth, and having dispersed the death of ignorance, and being endowed with new life p. 559 by God, has burst forth from the sepulchre of the old man, even as the Lord likened the scribes and Pharisees to “whited sepulchres.” 7394 Whence it follows that they who have by faith attained to the resurrection, are with the Lord after they have once put Him on in their baptism." (Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol III: Tertullian: Part II: Scripture Phrases and Passages Clearly Assert “The Resurrection of the Dead.” The Force of This Very Phrase Explained as Indicating the Prominent Place of the Flesh in the General Resurrection. Chapter XVIII.)