And now let us consider, with such ability as God may grant, how the saints will be occupied when they are clothed in immortal and spiritual bodies, and when the flesh will live no longer in a fleshly but a spiritual way. And indeed, to tell the truth, I am at a loss to understand the nature of that occupation, or, shall I rather say, repose and ease, for it has never come within the range of my bodily senses. And if I should speak of my mind or understanding, what is our understanding in comparison with its excellence? For then there will be that “peace of God which,” as the apostle says, “surpasses all understanding,” Philippians 4:7 — that is to say, all human, and perhaps all angelic understanding, but certainly not the divine. That it surpasses ours there is no doubt; but if it surpasses that of the angels — and the one who says “all understanding” seems to make no exception in their favor — then we must understand him to mean that neither we nor the angels can understand, as God understands, the peace which God Himself enjoys. Doubtless this surpasses all understanding but His own. But since we shall one day be made to participate, according to our slender capacity, in His peace, both in ourselves, and with our neighbor, and with God our chief good, in this respect the angels understand the peace of God in their own measure, and men too, though now far behind them, whatever spiritual advance they have made. For we must remember how great a man he was who said, “We know in part, and we prophesy in part, until that which is perfect has come;” 1 Corinthians 13:9-10 and “Now we see in a mirror, dimly; but then face to face.” 1 Corinthians 13:12 Such also is now the vision of the holy angels, who are also called our angels, because we, being rescued out of the power of darkness, and receiving the pledge of the Spirit, are transferred into the kingdom of Christ, and already begin to belong to those angels with whom we shall enjoy that holy and most delightful city of God of which we have now written so much. Thus, then, the angels of God are our angels, just as Christ is God's and also ours. They are God's, because they have not abandoned Him; they are ours, because we are their fellow citizens. The Lord Jesus also said, “See that you do not despise one of these little ones: for I say to you that in heaven their angels always see the face of my Father who is in heaven.” Matthew 18:10 As, then, they see, so we also shall see; but we do not yet see in this way. Therefore the apostle uses the words cited a little earlier, “Now we see in a mirror, dimly; but then face to face.” This vision is reserved as the reward of our faith; and of it the Apostle John also says, “When He appears, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.” 1 John 3:2 By “the face” of God we are to understand His manifestation, and not a part of the body similar to that which in our bodies we call by that name. And so, when I am asked how the saints will be occupied in that spiritual body, I do not say what I see, but I say what I believe, according to that which I read in the psalm, “I believed, therefore I have spoken.” I say, then, they will in the body see God; but whether they will see Him by means of the body, as we now see the sun, moon, stars, sea, earth, and all that is in it, that is a difficult question. For it is hard to say that the saints will then have such bodies that they will not be able to shut and open their eyes as they please; while it is harder still to say that everyone who shuts his eyes will lose the vision of God. For if the prophet Elisha, though at a distance, saw his servant Gehazi, who thought that his wickedness would escape his master's observation and accepted gifts from Naaman the Syrian, whom the prophet had cleansed from his foul leprosy, how much more will the saints in the spiritual body see all things, not only though their eyes are shut, but though they themselves are at a great distance? For then there will be “that which is perfect,” of which the apostle says, “We know in part, and we prophesy in part; but when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part shall be done away with.” Then, to illustrate as well as possible, by a simile, how superior the future life is to the life now lived, not only by ordinary men, but even by the foremost of the saints, he says, “When I was a child, I understood as a child, I spoke as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. Now we see in a mirror, dimly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then I shall know even as I also am known.” 1 Corinthians 13:11-12 If, then, even in this life, in which the prophetic power of remarkable men is no more worthy to be compared to the vision of the future life than childhood is to manhood, Elisha, though distant from his servant, saw him accepting gifts, shall we say that when that which is perfect has come, and the corruptible body no longer oppresses the soul, but is incorruptible and offers no impediment to it, the saints will need bodily eyes to see, though Elisha had no need of them to see his servant? For, following the Septuagint version, these are the prophet's words: “Did not my heart go with you, when the man came out of his chariot to meet you, and you took his gifts?” 2 Kings 5:26 Or, as the presbyter Jerome rendered it from the Hebrew, “Was not my heart present when the man turned from his chariot to meet you?” The prophet said that he saw this with his heart, miraculously aided by God, as no one can doubt. But how much more abundantly will the saints enjoy this gift when God is all in all? Nevertheless the bodily eyes also will have their function and their place, and will be used by the spirit through the spiritual body. For the prophet did not forgo the use of his eyes for seeing what was before them, though he did not need them to see his absent servant, and though he could have seen these present objects in spirit, and with his eyes shut, as he saw things far distant in a place where he himself was not. Far be it, then, from us to say that in the life to come the saints will not see God when their eyes are shut, since they will always see Him with the spirit. But the question arises, whether, when their eyes are open, they will see Him with the bodily eye? If the eyes of the spiritual body have no more power than the eyes which we now possess, plainly God cannot be seen with them. They must be of a very different power if they can look on that incorporeal nature which is not contained in any place, but is all in every place. For though we say that God is in heaven and on earth, as He Himself says by the prophet, “I fill heaven and earth,” Jeremiah 23:24 we do not mean that there is one part of God in heaven and another part on earth; but He is all in heaven and all on earth, not at alternate intervals of time, but both at once, as no bodily nature can be. The eye, then, will have a vastly superior power — the power not of keen sight, such as is ascribed to serpents or eagles, for however keenly these animals see, they can discern nothing but bodily substances, — but the power of seeing things incorporeal. Possibly it was this great power of vision which was temporarily communicated to the eyes of the holy Job while still in this mortal body, when he says to God, “I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear; but now my eye sees You: therefore I abhor myself, and melt away, and count myself dust and ashes;” Job 42:5-6 although there is no reason why we should not understand this of the eye of the heart, of which the apostle says, “Having the eyes of your heart enlightened.” Ephesians 1:18 But that God will be seen with these eyes no Christian doubts who accepts in faith what our God and Master says, “Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.” Matthew 5:8 But whether in the future life God will also be seen with the bodily eye, this is now our question. The expression of Scripture, “And all flesh shall see the salvation of God,” Luke 3:6 may without difficulty be understood as if it were said, “And every man shall see the Christ of God.” And He certainly was seen in the body, and will be seen in the body when He judges living and dead. And that Christ is the salvation of God, many other passages of Scripture witness, but especially the words of the venerable Simeon, who, when he had received into his hands the infant Christ, said, “Now let Your servant depart in peace, according to Your word: for my eyes have seen Your salvation.” Luke 2:29-30 As for the words of Job mentioned above, as they are found in the Hebrew manuscripts, “And in my flesh I shall see God,” no doubt they were a prophecy of the resurrection of the flesh; but he does not say “by the flesh.” And indeed, if he had said this, it would still be possible that Christ was meant by “God;” for Christ will be seen by the flesh in the flesh. But even understanding it of God, it is only equivalent to saying, I shall be in the flesh when I see God. Then the apostle's expression, “face to face,” 1 Corinthians 13:12 does not oblige us to believe that we shall see God by the bodily face in which the eyes of the body are, for we shall see Him without ceasing in spirit. And if the apostle had not referred to the face of the inner man, he would not have said, “But we, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image, from glory to glory, as by the spirit of the Lord.” 2 Corinthians 3:18 In the same sense we understand what the Psalmist sings, “Draw near to Him, and be enlightened; and your faces shall not be ashamed.” For it is by faith we draw near to God, and faith is an act of the spirit, not of the body. But since we do not know what degree of perfection the spiritual body will attain — for here we speak of a matter of which we have no experience, and on which the authority of Scripture does not definitely pronounce — it is necessary that the words of the Book of Wisdom be exemplified in us: “The thoughts of mortal men are timid, and our foresight uncertain.”⁠a For if that reasoning of the philosophers, by which they attempt to show that intelligible or mental objects are so seen by the mind, and sensible or bodily objects so seen by the body, that the former cannot be discerned by the mind through the body, nor the latter by the mind itself without the body — if this reasoning were trustworthy, then it would certainly follow that God could not be seen by the eye even of a spiritual body. But this reasoning is refuted both by true reason and by prophetic authority. For who is so little acquainted with the truth as to say that God has no awareness of sensible objects? Has He therefore a body, the eyes of which give Him this knowledge? Moreover, what we have just been relating of the prophet Elisha, does this not sufficiently show that bodily things can be discerned by the spirit without the help of the body? For when that servant received the gifts, certainly this was a bodily or material transaction, but the prophet saw it not by the body, but by the spirit. Since, therefore, it is agreed that bodies are seen by the spirit, what if the power of the spiritual body will be so great that spirit also is seen by the body? For God is a spirit. Besides, each man recognizes his own life — that life by which he now lives in the body, and which gives life to these earthly limbs and causes them to grow — by an interior sense, and not by his bodily eye; but the life of other men, though it is invisible, he sees with the bodily eye. For how do we distinguish between living and dead bodies, except by seeing at once both the body and the life which we cannot see except by the eye? But a life without a body we cannot see thus. Therefore it may very well be, and it is thoroughly credible, that we shall in the future world see the material forms of the new heavens and the new earth in such a way that we shall most distinctly recognize God everywhere present and governing all things, material as well as spiritual, and shall see Him, not as we now understand the invisible things of God, by the things which are made, Romans 1:20 and see Him dimly, as in a mirror, and in part, and by faith rather than by bodily vision of material appearances, but by means of the bodies we shall wear and which we shall see wherever we turn our eyes. Just as we do not believe, but see that the living men around us who are exercising vital functions are alive, though we cannot see their life without their bodies, but see it most distinctly by means of their bodies, so, wherever we look with those spiritual eyes of our future bodies, we shall then, too, by means of bodily substances see God, though a spirit, ruling all things. Either, therefore, the eyes will possess some quality similar to that of the mind, by which they may be able to discern spiritual things, and among these God — a supposition for which it is difficult or even impossible to find any support in Scripture, — or, which is easier to comprehend, God will be so known by us, and will be so much before us, that we shall see Him by the spirit in ourselves, in one another, in Himself, in the new heavens and the new earth, in every created thing which will then exist; and also by the body we shall see Him in every body which the keen vision of the eye of the spiritual body reaches. Our thoughts also will be visible to all, for then will be fulfilled the words of the apostle, “Judge nothing before the time, until the Lord comes, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the thoughts of the heart, and then everyone shall have praise from God.” 1 Corinthians 4:5