dead, but ascended alive."[1] Further, the Gospel[2] says, "that many bodies of those that slept arose,"—plainly as having been translated to a better state.[3] There took place, then, a universal movement and translation through the economy of the Saviour.
One righteous man, then, differs not, as righteous, from another righteous man, whether he be of the Law or a Greek. For God is not only Lord of the Jews, but of all men, and more nearly the Father of those who know Him. For if to live well and according to the law is to live, also to live rationally according to the law is to live; and those who lived rightly before the Law were classed under faith,[4] and judged to be righteous,—it is evident that those, too, who were outside of the Law, having lived rightly, in consequence of the peculiar nature of the voice,[5] though they are in Hades and in ward,[6] on hearing the voice of the Lord, whether that of His own person or that acting through His apostles, with all speed turned and believed. For we remember that the Lord is "the power of God,"[7] and power can never be weak.
So I think it is demonstrated that the God being good, and the Lord powerful, they save with a righteousness and equality which extend to all that turn to Him, whether here or elsewhere. For it is not here alone that the active power of God is beforehand, but it is everywhere and is always at work. Accordingly, in the Preaching of Peter, the Lord says to the disciples after the resurrection, "I have chosen you twelve disciples, judging you worthy of me," whom the Lord wished to be apostles, having judged them faithful, sending them into the world to the men on the earth, that they may know that there is one God, showing
- ↑ Hermas, book iii. chap. xvi. Ante-Nicene Library, 420. Quoted also in Stromata ii. Ante-Nicene Library, p. 218, from which the text here is corrected; Potter, 452.
- ↑ Matt, xxvii. 52.
- ↑ τάξιν.
- ↑ Rom. ix. 3.
- ↑ Apparently God's voice to them. Sylburgius proposes to read φύσεως instead of φανῆς here.
- ↑ 1 Pet. iii. 19.
- ↑ 1 Cor. i. 29.
