Irenaeus of Lyons · a new plain-English translation from the original language
Since Christ rose again in our flesh, it follows that we too will rise again in the same flesh; for the resurrection promised to us ought not to be referred to spirits, which are immortal by nature, but to bodies, which of themselves are mortal.
Just as, then, Christ rose again in the substance of flesh, and displayed to his disciples the wounds of the nails together with the pierced place in his side — proof that this very flesh had come back from death — so, Paul says, will he likewise raise us through that same power. And in another place, in his letter to the Romans, this is his statement: yet if the Spirit of him who woke Jesus from among the dead has its dwelling within you, then the one who woke Christ from death will bring your mortal bodies, too, to life. What, then, is meant by these mortal bodies? Could they be souls? Yet souls, set beside mortal bodies, are without body themselves; for it was into man's face that God blew the breath of life, and so man turned into a living soul, and that breath of life has no bodily substance. Yet they cannot even call the breath of life itself mortal. And for this reason David says: My soul shall live to him, as though its substance were immortal. Nor again can they call the spirit a mortal body. What, then, remains to be called a mortal body, except the created handiwork, that is, the flesh, of which scripture likewise says that God shall grant it life? It is this alone that perishes and comes apart, not the soul, and not the spirit either. To die means to forfeit the power of living, to be left thereafter without breath, without life, unable to stir — and none of that befalls the soul, since it is itself the breath of life, nor the spirit, since the spirit is simple, without composite parts, incapable of coming apart, and is itself the source of life for whoever possesses it. What is left, then, is that death touches the flesh alone, which, once the soul has withdrawn, stops breathing and is slowly resolved back into the ground it was taken from.
This mortal flesh, then, is sown in corruption and rises in incorruption. For, he says, what you sow is not brought to life unless it first dies. And what does this mean? He has taught unmistakably that he is speaking neither of the soul nor of the spirit, but of bodies that have been put to death. For these are the natural bodies, that is, bodies that share in the soul; when they lose the soul they are put to death, and afterward, rising through the Spirit, they become spiritual bodies, so that through the Spirit, who abides forever, they may have life. For at present, he says, our knowledge is partial and our prophecy is partial, but afterward we shall behold him directly, face to face. This is also what was said by Peter: Whom, though you have not seen, you love; in whom, though you do not now see him, you believe, and believing you rejoice with joy unspeakable. For then our own face shall look directly upon the Lord's face, and it shall exult with a gladness beyond words, seeing at last its own true joy.